The Computer and Information Sciences: A New Basic Discipline
Saul Gorn · SIAM Review · 1963
IT IS THE BELIEF OF THE AUTHOR that a new basic discipline is emerging which might be called Computer and Information Sciences. This field makes application of concepts from the traditional fields of mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, engineering, management science, library science, etc. Like all well-defined disciplines it has, in return, applications to other disciplines, and especially to those just mentioned. Examples of general topics of study in it might be programming systems, computer system design, artificial intelligence, information retrieval, etc. The probabilistic information theory of Shannon clearly belongs to this area, but there is a theory of mechanistic information and its processing which must also be included. Thus a central topic in the new discipline would be the synthesis and analysis of mechanical languages and their processors. To justify the beliefs and attitudes just expressed requires several types of consideration. First of all one should describe in reasonable depth some characteristics of the new discipline. This we will do by discussing 'mechanical languages', with which the author has been directly concerned. Secondly, one should describe how to distinguish the new area from the closely related ones with reasonable sharpness. How would one know, for example, whether a student's attitudes place him in this area rather than in one of the established ones? What background does he need to go into this new area deeply, and does this background differ appreciably from that needed in any one of the other areas? Finally one should estimate how such a new discipline can be expected to develop in the present environment of established disciplines. There are most certainly political problems in its acceptance in such environments.