Selbstkritische Betrachtungen 9 | Wenig faszinierende Strategien 13

18Aug
2015

Viele, die den jetzigen Zustand der Wissenschaften bemängeln, halten Phänomene wie das Voranstellen von Karriereorientierung vor dem Forscherdrang und das Abhalten “obskurer” Konferenzen für aktuelle Probleme des Wissenschaftsbetriebs. Lesen wir dazu bei Dijkstra, 1982:

A few remarks about “the sociology of science” or “how to make a career”. A young mathematician who lectures in Poland on EOL’s and ETOL’s etc. told me his motives for entering automata theory. He did not particularly like the subject, nor had he any belief in its relevance. But he found the subject easy, had observed relatively little competition, and, in his country, could earn a living with it because the university authorities confused it with computing science anyhow. At first I was shocked by his cynicism — he was a young man with most of his life still before him. At second thought I found it harder to blame him: he was perfectly honest about it and I could only pity him for having so few illusions (although, of course, this may save him some disappointments).
Next I observed a systematic application of the saying “In the land of the blind the one-eyed is king.”. People try to make careers in computing science by frequenting in this respect underdeveloped countries and obscure conferences. I had seen a few of such cases in Westem Europe, behind the iron curtain the phenomenon is very pronounced: it was sometimes embarrassing to hear which of my countrymen had frequented their places. And then the man who, later this fall, would go for a month to Singapore to lecture about Lindenmayer systems! That must be just what they need…
aus: E. W. Dijkstra, Selected Writings on Computing: A personal Perspective

Aber wenigstens das Auflisten und Aneinanderreihen von spacigen Buzzwords, um seiner Arbeit einen hipperen Touch zu verleihen, muss doch ein Phänomen des Internetzeitalters sein! Oder nicht? Lesen wir also weiter:

Lousy use of language —and therefore confusing— was a fairly general phenomenon. Allow me to end with the following anthology of crazy expressions. (Most of them are meaninglass; if they mean something, it is something nonsensical.)
“virtual systems”
“virtual terminals”
“logical names”
“physical names”
“logical abstractions”
“mapping of one level of abstraction onto the layer below”
“data structures are mapped into several layers of abstraction”
“a programmer efficiency index”
“an effective implementation view of the corporate data model”
“different levels of abstraction of view of data”
“dynamic change”
and, to crown the confusion,
“the computer playing this game”.
No, gentlemen, three times No: computers don’t play.
aus: gleiche Quelle

Vielleicht lässt sich auch schon bei den letzten selbstkritischen Betrachtungen nicht alles auf das 21. Jahrhundert schieben.