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by jayruy 5866 days ago
Strongly agreed. In some senses, the intermingling of science/engineering is/was due to strong economic forces that placed such a high value on software engineering. As of 10 years ago, the world needed more software engineers than it had; today this is questionable.

I think the field would be better off if it recontextualized itself as a form of applied mathematics, with computational complexity at its core. Mathematicians are used to being the weirdos, and have far more experience escaping the whims of industry.
1 comments
huherto 5866 days ago
"As of 10 years ago, the world needed more software engineers than it had; today this is questionable." My perception is that a lot of software engineers are needed. At least they are needed more(in numbers) than computer scientists.
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jayruy 5866 days ago
Yes: economically we also need ditch diggers in more numbers than classic literature experts. That doesn't make society better off if all the top universities start funneling money into ditch digging just because they can get away with it.

Note: I have a lot of respect for software engineering, just making a point with an extreme.

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