Abstract
Computer Science as a research discipline has always struggled with its identity. On the one hand, it is a field deeply rooted in mathematics which resulted in strong theories.1 For example, there is computational complexity theory (turing machines, the halting problem), database theory (the relational model, expresive power of query languages), formal language theory (the chomsky hierarchy, well-formedness, formal semantics). On the other hand, it is a field deeply rooted in engineering which resulted in machines that have completely warped our society: the von Neumann architecture (the basis for digital computers), parallel processors (the new generation of multi-core machines), distributed computers (a prerequisite for the success of the internet and recent phenomena like grid computing). Consequently, computer science has inherited its research methods from the same disciplines: on the one hand, the mathematical approach with axioms, postulates and proofs; on the other hand the engineering approach with quantification, measurements and comparison.
Published Version
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