I’m a computer scientist, not your tech support
Problems worthy of attack
Prove their worth by fighting back
- Piet Hein
A Princeton computer science major writes about his/her annoyance of being asked to fix computer problems.
What are problems in the field called “Computer Science” anyway? It’s NOT about how to make a web site. It’s NOT about fixing a machine that won’t boot up. It’s NOT about getting rid of worms investing your computer. It’s NOT about making the best hardware purchase.
Wikipedia has a list of unsolved computer science problems. It includes the famous P=NP. There is also a similar, significantly longer, list for mathematics and physics. This probably reflects the relatively young age of computer science. (those thinking mathematics is finished is dead wrong; the amount of mathematical research activity is in fact getting much bigger from time to time)
Anyway, does the reverse happen? (which means, people enrolling CS expecting to be taught about fixing computer problems)
