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Diff: ComputerScience
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Differences between current version and predecessor to the previous major change of ComputerScience.

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Newer page: version 7 Last edited on Tuesday, October 7, 2003 12:48:53 pm by GlynWebster
Older page: version 4 Last edited on Wednesday, August 6, 2003 2:48:41 pm by StuartYeates Revert
@@ -1,6 +1,12 @@
-This joke has been floating around the net for many years:  
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+ComputerScience is arguably the discipline of making computers do more stuff that computers have done before. This is distinct from SoftwareEngineering, which is the discipline of reliably making computers do something and ECommerce, which is the discipline of using a computer to extract money from someone else's pocket.  
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+ComputerScience is not InformationTechnology either, which could loosely be defined as "empowering business through machinery".  
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+In short: VoiceRecognition is ComputerScience, making VoiceRecognition systems that work reliably and is SoftwareEngineering and building a website to sell a VoiceRecognition (reliable or not) is [ECommerce].  
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+There is actually a grain of truth in the following joke, which has been floating around the net for many years:  
+ 
 Once upon a time, in a kingdom not far from here, a king summoned two of his advisors for a test. He showed them both a shiny metal box with two slots in the top, a control knob, and a lever. "What do you think this is?" 
  
 One advisor, an engineer, answered first. "It is a toaster," he said. The king asked, "How would you design an embedded computer for it?" The engineer replied, "Using a four-bit microcontroller, I would write a simple program that reads the darkness knob and quantizes its position to one of 16 shades of darkness, from snow white to coal black. The program would use that darkness level as the index to a 16-element table of initial timer values. Then it would turn on the heating elements and start the timer with the initial value selected from the table. At the end of the time delay, it would turn off the heat and pop up the toast. Come back next week, and I'll show you a working prototype." 
  
@@ -11,18 +17,11 @@
 "The ham and cheese omelet class is worth special attention because it must inherit characteristics from the pork, dairy, and poultry classes. Thus, we see that the problem cannot be properly solved without multiple inheritance. At run time, the program must create the proper object and send a message to the object that says, 'Cook yourself.' The semantics of this message depend, of course, on the kind of object, so they have a different meaning to a piece of toast than to scrambled eggs." 
  
 "Reviewing the process so far, we see that the analysis phase has revealed that the primary requirement is to cook any kind of breakfast food. In the design phase, we have discovered some derived requirements. Specifically, we need an object-oriented language with multiple inheritance. Of course, users don't want the eggs to get cold while the bacon is frying, so concurrent processing is required, too." 
  
-"We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the food lacks versatility, and the darkness knob is confusing. Users won't buy the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical interface. When the breakfast cooker is plugged in, users should see a cowboy boot on the screen. Users click on it, and the message 'Booting UNIX v.8.3' appears on the screen. (UNIX 8.3 should be out by the time the product gets to the market.) Users can pull down a menu and click on the foods they want to cook." 
+"We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the food lacks versatility, and the darkness knob is confusing. Users won't buy the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical interface. When the breakfast cooker is plugged in, users should see a cowboy boot on the screen. Users click on it, and the message 'Booting [ UNIX] v.8.3' appears on the screen. (UNIX 8.3 should be out by the time the product gets to the market.) Users can pull down a menu and click on the foods they want to cook." 
  
-"Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in the design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware platform for the implementation phase. An Intel 80386 with 8MB of memory, a 30MB hard disk, and a VGA monitor should be sufficient. If you select a multitasking, object oriented language that supports multiple inheritance and has a built-in GUI, writing the program will be a snap. (Imagine the difficulty we would have had if we had foolishly allowed a hardware-first design strategy to lock us into a four-bit microcontroller !)." 
+"Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in the design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware platform for the implementation phase. An Intel 80386 with 8MB of memory, a 30MB hard disk, and a [ VGA] monitor should be sufficient. If you select a multitasking, object oriented language that supports multiple inheritance and has a built-in GUI, writing the program will be a snap. (Imagine the difficulty we would have had if we had foolishly allowed a hardware-first design strategy to lock us into a four-bit MicroController !)." 
  
 The king wisely had the computer scientist beheaded, and they all lived happily ever after. 
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 Part of CategoryFunny 
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-  
-ComputerScience is arguably the discipline of making computers do stuff that computers have done before. This is distinct from SoftwareEngineering, which is the discipline of reliably making computers do something and ECommerce, which is the discipline of using a computer to extract money from someone else's pocket.  
-  
-In short: VoiceRecognition is ComputerScience, making VoiceRecognition systems that work reliably and is SoftwareEngineering and finding building a website to sell a VoiceRecognition (reliable or not) is ECommerce.  
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-So these is actually a grain of truth in the above joke.