Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 8
Programming and Meaning
Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise
men
Douglas Bader (1910-1982)
8.1
A Grand Challenge
During April 2005 at the University of York, an international workshop was held
called '
The Grand Challenge in Non-Classical Computation
'. The purpose of the
conference was to stimulate those doing research and development in Computer
Science to consider new approaches to computing. The stimulation for this challenge
was triggered by the novel concept of '
Quantum Computing
', which seemed to offer
the potential for ultra fast parallel processing using quantum mechanical principles
such as superposition and entanglement. The organisers thought that there might
be other mechanisms that could be harnessed based upon, say, biology, alternative
physical principles or probability. They considered that by moving away from the
architecture of computers there might be some benefits. It was put to the science
community to consider and propose alternative computational mechanisms that might
lead to some conceptual extensions of computer science.
The mass of proposals put before the workshop were concerned mainly with
new engines of computing. However, another important challenge of the time was
how people and communities could more easily interact with the computer. The
problem, as David Gooding and I saw it, was embodied in the phrase '
socially
sensitive computing
' and was included as another issue that was different from the
mechanics of computation. This area of socially sensitive computing was also covered
by the two existing studies of Informatics and Cybernetics.
A definition of '
Informatics
', given by Edinburgh University (February 2014), is
the study of the structure, the behaviour, and the interactions of natural and engi-
neered computational systems. The central focus of Informatics is the transformation
of information—whether by computation or communication or by organisms or arte-
facts. It was considered that the understanding of the informational phenomena,
such as computation, cognition, and communication as a single combined subject,
would enable technological advances and also provide insights into many natural
and artificial systems.
