We see power and beauty in computer science, even while we rage against the limitations of the technology that grows out of it. We see our field not (just) as a way to make boxes that beep, but as a fundamentally new way of thinking about the world. We are craftsmen, taking great satisfaction in the structures we build. We drag abstractions kicking and screaming from Plato's cave, and we make them real. We are explorers, proud of our hard-won discoveries but humbled by the depth of our ignorance. We have changed the world, utterly and irreversably. Our influence on your daily life may be less immediate than the influence of doctors, lawyers, politicians, bankers, and soldiers, but it is no less profound. And we are just barely getting started.
Ruminations on computational geometry, algorithms, theoretical computer science and life
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Frame this on your wall...
Because it's the most eloquent eulogy for computer science that I have ever read:
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