Differences between version 6 and previous revision of ComputerScience.
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| Newer page: | version 6 | Last edited on Monday, October 6, 2003 7:17:45 pm | by CraigBox | Revert |
| Older page: | version 5 | Last edited on Monday, October 6, 2003 3:24:02 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 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.
+
+ComputerScience is not InformationTechnology either, which could loosely be defined as "empowering business through machinery".
+
+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].
+
+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."
@@ -18,13 +24,4 @@
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 building a website to sell a VoiceRecognition (reliable or not) is [ECommerce].
-
-So these is actually a grain of truth in the above joke.
-
-(Factual content by StuartYeates).
