Computer Science vs. Software Engineering vs. Computer Engineering

Subtitle: For the vector of reality, direction is more important than magnitude.

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. Eleanor Roosevelt

I'm not going to try to define Computer Science. (He's one of the Happy People at Yale.)

Advice is not one-stop-shopping.
  1. The Missing Processional (But, perhaps you prefer drama?)
  2. Your Homework (at least gaze at the tooltips)

Ensuring a Computing Career

  1. Gift to Grandma Weems (1989?) (the family business)
  2. Thursday, December 25, 1969 - Dawn of the Slide Rule Kid (I also got a pair of bongos and a moon rocket)
  3. My first computing experience - 1971 gonna be a physicist
  4. Second computing experience - 1974 gonna be a EE (Oh, the smell of solder)
  5. Third computing experience - 1975 gonna be a CpE (and I didn't register for Selective Service. How are the Hall of Flags and the war in Southeast Asia connected?)
  6. Path not taken (and now . . . and right around the corner)
  7. Where I thought I was going - twice
  8. My HS project - 1976 gonna be a CSer (the inspiration, perfection, and I never seriously considered mathematics)
  9. The gotta pay tuition detour I - healthcare IT (A French Computer?, Everyone's Favorite Bully (IBM), This started as COBOL [basics, J.ACM])
  10. The gotta pay tuition detour II - double major in accounting? (and we didn't have spreadsheets . . . ACM version, TED version)
  11. Path not taken - MSwEng (weekly reading in 1979, What is Software Engineering?)
  12. Outstanding Individuals (why the Internet hasn't choked on cat videos /details, my favorite genius ... author ... logician/sage ... entrepreneur ... kazoo player ... song ... EGOT ... IBM salesman ... retiring IBM CEO)
  13. Outstanding Systems (frugality perfected, an old friend)
  14. I haven't forgotten you

Getting Control

  1. Argonne - Summer 1980 (PL/I, All in on IBM, TMI, Automated Deduction?, moonlighting for a numismatist)
  2. Just a student! PLs, Compilers, and Numerical Methods (Pascal and a touch of snobby)
  3. Learn to Drive the Big Rigs (game programming? [40 years later ...], never a more beloved system)
  4. 1982 Master's Thesis - Structural Editor for Pascal (Is this software?/He has his own tennis tournament, Having a BA degree obligated me to read this)

On To Research

  1. What was in the air
  2. What others were doing
  3. What I did (The book I wish I had or maybe )

The Next 35+ Years

  1. Nine months in a cornfield (My first PC)
  2. Distributed DB
  3. "The Network is the Computer" (and ... what is communication?)
  4. Parallel Computing (Look at that clock speed)
  5. Computational Geometry (More than just napkins)
  6. Generic Programming? (The math/CS connection)
  7. Preference Matching (M.D. version, Ph.D. version, and a few technicalities. How not to play the field)
  8. Answer Set Programming - A 30 year reset (in the browser . . ., Logic/Systems Perspective, Database Perspective. It may be hard to believe, but I'm a Neat)

Our Futures

  1. I might see all of you
  2. I might see some of you (Peppa Pig)
  3. You might really understand me (Pizza Delivery)
  4. Where is The Cloud? (It can't possibly be big enough)
  5. Wright Brothers level innovation? (getting started)
  6. What you learn from others you can use to follow. What you learn for yourself you can use to lead. Richard Hamming
  7. The Missing Recessional (How about a sing-along?)