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Amir Michail

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Has computer science completely missed the point of a computer -- namely, that it is a creative tool?

One could argue that computer science is like a "pen science" where scientists find ways to write as quickly as possible with a pen and to fill up a page with as much text as possible.

That would of course completely miss the point of a pen.

One could say something similar about computer science with its focus on time and space efficiency of computations.

The computer—like a pen—is a creative tool and the focus should be on the invention of new kinds of software applications—not on making existing ones more efficient.

Universities should have a creative field of study—distinct from computer science—for novel uses of computers.

Topics: computer science computers creativity
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    Erik Harpstead 50+

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    TEDx Organizer
    Feb 17 2011: I am studying Computer Science and my algorithms professor, today actually, talked about how many technical papers come out of Pixar about new ways to improve rendering of images and simulation of physics by improving algorithms. There is also something to be said about the creativity of programming, and how a computer scientist would consider it a creative act to write an elegant algorithm to do some task better. I totally agree that there should be more instruction in creative programming but there is a degree of knowledge that is required to make a program do something innovative and do it well.

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