[ih] PhD

[Michael Greenwald]

On 2021-01-03 13:32, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> Knuth was mandatory during the 60s/70s for anyone interested in
> computers.  A great set of books.  But he makes my point -- he recounts
> "The *Art* of Computer...", not the Science.
> 
> IIRC, Science involves observing something, distilling theories about
> underlying principles, and then creating and performing experiments to
> validate the theory.   We've been observing Computers and Networks for
> 50 years, and performing the Internet Experiment almost as long.  I'm
> just curious about the results so far....
> 
> /Jack
> (still waiting for Knuth Volumes 4-7...)

I assume you mean waiting for volume 4 to
be *complete*. But in the off-chance that
you didn't, Volume 4 is (partially) out
already. It is divided into subvolumes.
The subvolumes are divided into fascicles
(not sure I got the spelling right).
Volume 4A + 6 fascicles are out. (I
believe that fascicles 5 and 6 are part
of Volume 4B, not 4A.)
My apologies if this is old news to
everyone.

> 
> On 1/3/21 1:19 PM, vinton cerf via Internet-history wrote:
>> well, at least read Knuth.
>> v
>> 
>> 
>> On Sun, Jan 3, 2021 at 3:45 PM Alex McKenzie via Internet-history <
>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> 
>>>  Jack,
>>> For networking, I think there are a number of key principles exposed 
>>> in
>>> John Day's book " Patterns in Network Architecture"
>>> For Computer Science, I don't know.
>>> Cheers,Alex
>>> 
>>>     On Sunday, January 3, 2021, 2:58:31 PM EST, Jack Haverty via
>>> Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 1/3/21 10:12 AM, Joseph Touch via Internet-history wrote:
>>>> It’s less common as a field matures,
>>> I think this observation is key -- "Computer Science" is far from 
>>> being
>>> mature.  IMHO, it's still somewhere in the spectrum between Art and
>>> Engineering.
>>> 
>>> When I was in grad school at MIT, I remember asking my advisor about
>>> investing several more years to get a PhD in the then-new curriculum 
>>> of
>>> Computer Science.    His observation was that PhDs tend to produce
>>> experts in some very narrow specialization, and also provide 
>>> credentials
>>> useful for attracting venture capital to found companies.   In 
>>> contrast,
>>> MS work tends to create professionals with much broader interests and
>>> ability to explore outside of their academic focus.   I interpreted
>>> this: PhDs think and discover scientific principles; MSes build 
>>> stuff.
>>> 
>>> Since I was most interested in "building stuff that people actually 
>>> use"
>>> (what I told my high school adviser), I took the MS route.   This was
>>> apparently pretty common at the time (an immature field).  There's an
>>> interesting summary here of the experience at Harvard, and its ties 
>>> to
>>> The Internet:
>>> 
>>> https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2020/09/features-a-science-is-born
>>> 
>>> I've asked the question before, but never gotten any answers -- after
>>> 50+ years of Computer Science, what are the top few most important
>>> Scientific Principles that have been discovered - analogous to 
>>> Maxwell's
>>> Equations, or Einstein's, etc?  Same question for the subfield of
>>> Computer Networking.
>>> 
>>> IMHO, we won't have a Science until we know those Principles that 
>>> tell
>>> us how to use computers in ways that don't require constant updates 
>>> to
>>> fix critical flaws, or enable branches of governments or high school
>>> script kiddies to engage in cyberwarfare, or subject all of us to 
>>> spam,
>>> phishing, viruses, identity theft, and other such nasties of computer
>>> life today.
>>> 
>>> There's now over 50 years of operational experience with computers 
>>> and
>>> networks.  The "Internet Experiment" continues.   Perhaps some 
>>> current
>>> PhD candidates can extract some Scientific Principles from all that
>>> experimentation and tell the next generation of builders how to make
>>> things better.
>>> 
>>> /Jack Haverty
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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