Computing > Computer Science

Robert L. Glass
Editor-Emeritus, Journal of Systems and Software
Editor/Publisher, The Software Practitioner

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I very much appreciated your article "Computing > Computer Science" in the Sept. 2002 Computing Research News. It is important, I believe, to appreciate the broader field of computing. CS, like most academic disciplines, tends to be too introspective, seeing the world with itself at its center.

When I see the broader computing field, I must confess, I see something different from what you see. I see three principle academic disciplines, Computer Science (CS), Information Systems (IS), and Software Engineering (SE). There are other computing academic disciplines, of course, but their populations tend to be in the noise level compared to these three.

One nice thing about this view of the computing field is that it also tends to track with the computing field as it exists in industry. There are, arguably, far more computing practitioners in the field of IS than in any other field (many say 60-70%). Most software practitioners eventually call themselves software engineers (or, resisting that formal term, "programmers"), and most of the remaining (non-IS, non-software) computing practitioners would call themselves something with the word "computing" in it. Seen in this way, the field of CS tends to dissolve in practice, evolving into another collection of professionals who choose a different set of names. It is because of that that I tend to resist CS-centric views of the computing field.

In the final figure of your article, you make a gesture at what you call the "infinity" of application domains, graphically angling in things you call "computational science" and "information technology." But there are some problems with those additions:

1. These only scratch the surface of that infinity of application domains. For example, a great number of those domains (e.g., systems programming and real-time programming) are not about either "computation" or "information." There are probably a multitude of additional topics to be angled in. Choosing a taxonomy that characterizes those additional topics could be a major contribution to the broader computing field, one I believe your figure should at least hint at.
2. The figure continues to retain CS as its centerpiece, not acknowledging the existence of those other academic/industry topics, IS and SE.

As you have seen, I have my own set of biases regarding this general subject. I have done research from the point of view of those biases, examining the broader computing field via its pedagogical topics [Glass 1992] and its research [Glass, Vessey, and Ramesh 2003]. I believe the findings of that research can lead the computing field to a vastly improved self-understanding. The work I have done emerges from my background as (a) a software engineering practitioner in the aerospace industry, (b) an academic who has taught in both the CS and (especially) the SE fields, and (c) a computing specialist who feels that the enormous IS field fails to get the attention it so richly deserves.

I applaud your discussion of the broader computing field, and I applaud Computing Research News for publishing it. I hope you and CRN will continue to pursue this topic; it is enormously important to the computing field.

References:

Glass 1992 - "A Comparative Analysis of the Topic Areas of Computer Science, Software Engineering, and Information Systems," Journal of Systems and Software, Nov., 1992. Examines the computing field through the lens of its standard curriculum definitions.

Glass, Vessey, and Ramesh 2003 - "A Comparative Analysis of the Research of Computer Science, Software Engineering, and Information Systems," in review. Examines the computing field by characterizing its published research. This paper is preceded by three others, each of which characterizes one of CS, SE, and IS, all three of which have been accepted for publication.

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