From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@...>
Date: 2007-07-19T13:26:01+09:00
Subject: Re: The Pebble in the Ruby Shoe

Chad Perrin wrote:
> Yes and no.  I wouldn't call it "systematic", but it's certainly a
> falsehood, even if propagated largely by accident or with innocent
> misunderstanding.  Excepting in the sense that one can regard computer
> science as an alternate and self-contained mathematics, quite distinct
> from the mainstream "mathematics" field of study, programmers are not so
> universally mathematicians as so many people seem so convinced they are.
> 
> The fact that mathematicians these days tend to end up being programmers
> does not translate to programmers tending to be mathematicians.  This is
> not a one-to-one correspondence.

In fact, there is a school of thought that says computer scientists
*shouldn't* be mathematicians! See

"Want to Be a Computer Scientist? Forget Maths" iTWire (07/05/07);
Corner, Stuart (http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/13339/53/)

Of course, I think of myself as an applied mathematician, computer
scientist and software engineer as much as I think of myself as a
"programmer". I personally think the argument at the above link is a
steaming pile, in other words. :)