Teaching the history of computer science

Reviewer: Donald J. Bagert

Rothwell makes a brief argument for teaching the history of computer science (CS) as a humanities course, which should be required in the early stages of a curriculum for CS majors. Rothwell makes an excellent point; however, he does not provide an argument explaining why the separate course is the proper venue for its delivery, except that it would allow students to count it as a humanities credit (required of US undergraduates across fields). However, one can also argue that the proper method for putting various CS topics in their historical context is to include such information within each lecture in each course of study. Although the amount of historical information will differ from course-to-course (for instance, a Concepts of Programming Languages class constantly needs to discuss the evolution of various languages and concepts), I found the inclusion of least one historical fact in each and every lecture to be essential to the proper education of computer scientists. On the other hand, having history professors deliver such material is not as good a fit, since their ability to place events in broad historical context is not as necessary in a young field like computer science. In addition, they neither the background nor the class time to provide information about current practices as a basis for comparison. So, although Rothwell (who is apparently not an educator) is correct in his sentiment, I cannot endorse the methods he recommends regarding this issue. Online Computing Reviews Service