[Charles Babbage, Alan Turing, John von Neumann] is to computer science as [Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton] is to physics.
As my Pervasive Computing professor mentioned in class, people the world over would not doubt that every physics major should know who Einstein and Newton are. If someone was to graduate from a college with a degree in physics and not know who they are, that would be a travesty to life.
There we were, a rag tag group of computer science rejects (NJIT isn't that good). And yes, the majority of us didn't know who Babbage, Turing, and von Neumann were. I don't even know how to spell Neumann without looking.
I agree that we should learn more of real computing science and history of computers... But the people here... The audience just isn't conducive to learning about such great things. I mean, forcing everyone to take CIS 113, and then expecting those same computer science students to know the great legends of computer science... I don't think so.
Someone needs to be hit with a clue bat, both students and teachers.
Posted by Mark Canlas at September 3, 2004 10:53 AM