From: Dennis Newbold Date: 2002-05-15T03:17:19+09:00 Subject: Re: OT:is software eng an art? On Tue, 14 May 2002, Dossy wrote: > On 2002.05.14, Michael Sullivan wrote: > > > > Why did Knuth call his books "The Art of Computer Programming"? > > > > Just a rhetorical question. > > I distinguish between Software Engineering and Computer Programming. > Perhaps Knuth does too? > > -- Dossy > This brought up a foggy memory which I tried to chase down abit. In 1974, Knuth received the Turing Award. In response, he write a brief lecture titled "Computer Programming As an Art", which was published in the Dec. 1974 issue of the CACM. I could only access the one-paragraph abstract, as viewing the full text online was going to cost > $100, so I demured. FWIW, I give it below, as an indication that this particular debate / effort has been going on for a L-O-O-N-G time, and also as an example of Knuth's sly and irrreverent sense of humor: "When Communications of the ACM began publication in 1959, the members of ACM's Editorial Board made the following remark as they described the purposes of ACM's periodicals [2]: If computer programming is to become an important part of computer research and development, a transition of programming from an art to a disciplined science must be effected. Such a goal has been a continually recurring theme during the ensuing years; for example, we read in 1970 of the first steps toward transforming the art of programming into a science [26]. Meanwhile we have actually succeeded in making our discipline a science, and in a remarkably simple way: merely by deciding to call it computer science." -dln-