On Sun, Jun 08, 2025 at 02:05:35PM +0200, [email protected] wrote:
> Magnificant elaboration. Thank you for this verbalization!
> Indeed, a much better verbalization that I could ever come up with
> during my thoughtful walks.

Thank you very much, Chris.  As I proceed through my 60s,
I've accepted there's no Nobel or Turing in my future.
But I guess I'm learning I'm not bad at explaining and
presenting.

> There are times in computer science, where I'm ashamed of what
> is considered a worthwhile topic... leaving me with confusion
> in regards to what I once thought to be an interesting endeavour.

I know what you mean, and I honestly think a lot of it
relates to how young our field is.  Every freshman taking
intro Calculus and Newtonian mechanics is studying stuff
that's been around for over 400 years.  But the most natural
time to date the beginning of CS is around '46 or '47,
making our field just about 80 years old.  We're not at
a position where we have the equivalent distinctions of
roles of scientists, engineers, and technicians.  I love
the fact that one day I can be working on proving that
the ENIAC was Turing complete and the next day sorting
through Cisco documentation to configure an old router
and the next day experimenting with the Plan 9 real-time
scheduler and a kernel driver.  (Okay, there weren't
all on consecutive days, but they were all in the last
year.)  And the years going by also help to remind me
that whatever satisfies my intellectual curiosity is
valid, no matter what journal reviewers or promotion
committees might say.

BLS


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