Computer Science: An Interview

Peter J. Denning, Neville Holmes
This e-mail interview with Peter Denning sprang from comments in the October 2010 The Profession column, “The Future of the Computing Profession: Readers’ E-mails” about Denning’s essay, “The Great Principles of Computing” (American Scientist, Sept./Oct. 2010, pp. 369-372).

Question: Remind me of the purpose of your essay.

Response: I wrote for an audience of scientists from many fields. My purpose was to show them that the computing field has reached maturity and must be taken seriously in science and engineering. In fact, there is a strong case that computing is a great domain of science, alongside the traditional domains of the physical, life, and social sciences.

I appreciated your suggestion to your readers that they should read the article. Computing professionals need not be defensive about their field and can instead focus on bringing their computing expertise into the service of the science and engineering fields they work with.

Question: The illustration for your essay showed several science figures and one engineering figure floating in a cloud, with the computing figure rowing a cloud canoe to join them. Does that engineering figure really belong among the science figures?

Response: That figure is an editorial artist’s interpretation of the message of the article. The artist was trying to reflect my message that computing is growing up and joining the ranks of mature science and engineering. That’s why the artist probably thought it well to include an engineering figure. Perhaps a better figure would have been a cloud marked “computing,” with all the other fields frantically rowing canoes to catch it.