3rd August 2005, 1 min read

Computer Science Eulogy

Thanks to Suresh, I got to Ernie’s eulogy of Computer Science:

This lack of stories is an endless source of frustration for those of us who say Oh Wow! every day. We see power and beauty in computer science, even while we rage against the limitations of the technology that grows out of it. We see our field not (just) as a way to make boxes that beep, but as a fundamentally new way of thinking about the world. We are craftsmen, taking great satisfaction in the structures we build. We drag abstractions kicking and screaming from Plato’s cave, and we make them real. We are explorers, proud of our hard-won discoveries but humbled by the depth of our ignorance. We have changed the world, utterly and irreversably. Our influence on your daily life may be less immediate than the influence of doctors, lawyers, politicians, bankers, and soldiers, but it is no less profound. And we are just barely getting started.

I think it was well worth repeating here.