Greetings Economists, On Feb 5, 2006, at 11:47 AM, raghu wrote: CS (Computer Science) is certainly not lowly compared to math. I'd argue that today it is a much more useful subject than most areas of math. My original point was that it takes significantly less effort to "learn CS" than any other advanced field of knowledge.
Doyle, My interpretation of your thought may have been in error. Thanks for the genial and friendly reply. My view of CS is not from inside the field, but in how I've observed it's role in the U.S. For example, how Norbert Wiener and John Von Neumann differed in their emphasis in the development of this area of 'intelligence speculation' at that time (post WWII) mathematical research. Post WWII this techno field arose in a huckstering atmosphere. For example, the phrase, 'programming language', always seemed to me metaphor but not functional in regard to language. So the field had a lot of 'hype'. Of course there are tools like IBM via voice that are steps forward in regard to language technology. But programming seems very little language like. Is CS easier to learn? To me that's an interesting if unresolved question in a larger sense. The oddity of a child learning a language and an adult not so able to learn a language is highly interesting. Anecdotally I would agree with your remark about CS but feel uneasy going beyond that observation. You would have to convince me of something about learning to help me out here with this thesis. Do we have a learning paradigm? thanks, Doyle Saylor
