co-author: Alexis Clancy
It is essential to engage in a reflection on the relationship between computer science and the history of ideas.
Existing computer science is based on 17th century ideas (philosophy and scientific method).
No one else has seen this, but we see it.
The entire history of ideas of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries has been excluded from computer science, which has established itself as an engineering and technical discipline starting from this foundational exclusion.
Once we see this clearly, the land through the fog, we discover a whole new continent, like Columbus discovering America.
Historians, take note: like Columbus, who set out to reach India, we did not know that we were going to discover the New Computer Science when we first embarked on our spiritual journey.
The New Computer Science will be an extension of the existing computer science (including object-oriented development), growing out of a real encounter with the history of ideas of these past three centuries.
The New Computer Science is about the unity of theory and practice: new ideas leading to new – more powerful and more valuable – code.
Our code will do things that code produced by the existing computer science cannot do.
Thus it will no longer be possible for “engineering” or “techie” programmers to dismiss the importance of theory.
It is theory that enables the new – more powerful and more valuable – practice.
We are fundamentally interested in forms, not in calculations. This is the paradigm shift.
