Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
As we have seen in the case of all the early academic centers of elec-
tronic computing—Columbia, Harvard, MIT, and the University of
Pennsylvania—computing activity itself was confi ned to the computing
laboratories, while theoretical work and practical instruction in comput-
ing tended to be distributed throughout the university, with departments
of mathematics and electrical engineering serving as de facto administra-
tors of computer-related education. This was certainly the situation as
Fein described it in his 1959 report. It was not inevitable, at least through
the end of the 1960s, that computer science would be able to distance
itself from its origins in other disciplines. As long as courses in computing
theory or at least practical programming were being offered by individual
departments, it was not obvious that it needed to. Some of the traditional
disciplines clearly felt threatened by the newcomer. At Harvard and
Princeton, for example, undergraduate enrollments grew rapidly in com-
puter science while they stagnated in other areas of applied science and
engineering. At Penn and MIT, an increasing number of electrical engi-
neering students chose to focus on computer-related subjects rather than
on other areas of electrical engineering. As computer-related subfi elds
began drawing resources and students from traditional disciplines, heated
battles erupted over faculty slots, graduate admissions, and courses. Its
early success at attracting students and resources notwithstanding, com-
puter science was repeatedly forced to defend its academic legitimacy.
And so the real historical question seems to be not why it took so long
for an autonomous discipline of computer science to be established but
why it ever got established in the fi rst place.
Is Computer Science Science?
The most obvious answer is that computer science exists because the
computer scientists wanted it to. The community of computing research-
ers that emerged out of the digital computing laboratories of the 1950s
represented a defi nitive break from the earlier tradition of the scientifi c
computing bureau. These were not the female human computers or tabu-
lating machine operators of the previous generation; they were men with
MAs or PhDs in fi elds like physics, mathematics, and astronomy. They
had been attracted to computing because they found the work challeng-
ing and rewarding, not because they had no other options. A few already
had positions as university faculty; most had academic aspirations;
all believed computing, as a generalized phenomenon, was a subject
worthy of sustained and concentrated scientifi c attention. It seemed both
