[hnick]

Do you consider an ASIC a computer? How about a sufficiently large number of NAND gates, arranged a certain way? They can perform computation but are not programmable after the fact.

My computer science degree covered a lot of topics that didn't require a computer, for example relational algebra, discrete mathematics, and introductory formal logic. Of course, the practical usages of these are often best done through a computer and programming, but it's not a requirement.

In reality all computer science degrees I'm familiar with make an attempt to expose students to relevant programming languages, it's simply practical and students demand it, but the details of coding style, how to use git, or similar topics may not be relevant in a computer science degree. That stuff isn't so hard to learn if you have clear guidelines and they have some baseline amount of intelligence which is one thing a degree tries to validate.

[alxmng]

An ASIC is a computer which runs a fixed program. Determining what the ASIC is supposed to do, and implementing it, is programming. People who design ASICs are programmers.

A computer is a machine which runs programs (it computes). That's literally the practical and theoretical basis for computing. Instead of running the program in our heads, we have designed machines to do it for us.

We can calculate SHA256 with a paper and pencil. But we created machines (computers) to compute for us, according to the instructions we give them (the program, the algorithm).

[dcow]

Is calculating SHA256 using pencil and paper programming? Or computing?