Talk:Theoretical computer science/Archive 1

Archive 1

History section is ahistorical

By all accounts, the term computer science did not appear until the early 60s. Early 20th century information science was conducted under a variety of other labels that do not align with the current disciplinary boundary and including them all without explanation is ahistorical. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.225.211.126 (talk) 18:22, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Since new revision, a variety of TCS areas are now missing

Since the major revision a variety of important areas of TCS are now missing. For example, Combinatorial Optimization is completely absent from the article now, likewise most of the Discrete Mathematics fields (e.g., Combinatorics, Graph Theory) that intersect TCS. These should be included, even if we were to bring back the subject or topic box that was previously on the page. Computability Theory, one of the most foundation fields of TCS is absent as well (I am aware of the last sentence given in the CCT section, the name of the field should be present). I also find the algorithm definition to be ambiguous with respect to what theoreticians in TCS actually use as the definition for an algorithm. E.g. An algorithm is a non-ambiguous step-by-step procedure that takes in input, and produces output in a finite number of steps (I've seen some def. not include the finite part, since you can make incorrect algorithms). A correct algorithm will produce correct output for all instances of a problem. We describe algorithms with respect to problems typically in TCS. The current page does not accurately describe TCS, but it is definitely a step in the right direction. I recommend these changes are made or at least incorporated if anybody gets time. I think the major revision removed a lot of fields that were here before, even if they are mentioned (e.g., Combinatorial Optimization, Graph Theory, Combinatorics, Computability Theory, etc..). I temporarily have included the old table from the old version until all the fields we used to have on the page are included as those fields are very traditionally seen to intersect TCS and are active areas of TCS. 24.246.17.80 (talk) 01:29, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Older comment

Since the term is sort of a grab-bag for a variety of researchers, I think this article would do better as a description of the people and organizations doing theory, pushing off technical bits to specific topics (which already mostly seem to have article, yay). Bits to be added here could include joint conferences and joint projects with "practical" CS people, something about the "genealogy" (SIGACT has a nifty page on this) that name-drops the most notable theory people, and ideally a few catty remarks by and against theory people (I've heard them personally, but that's not verifiable, heh-heh, what can we find in print?). Stan 13:43, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The anon's edit of 22 January is well-meaning, but it goes exactly opposite to what I just said above, reproduces material better-described elsewhere, and makes a few unsourced generalizations. So I intend to revert nearly all of it, but will wait to hear counterarguments. Stan 00:07, 23 January 2006 (UTC) Insert non-formatted text here

Illustration in "Scope"

Regarding the illustration in Theoretical computer science#Scope: Sure, it looks nice and it would be great to have something like this. But what does it actually mean? Why is it there, and exactly what does it try to represent? If it tries to represent the sub-fields or topics of TCS, then I'd argue that we need to revise it thoroughly (it omits obvious things like "computational complexity theory" and "algorithms"; it is incompatible with the SIGACT quotation above the figure; and there are no references). If it is something else, then an explanation is needed. (The same illustration appears in Computer science#Theoretical computer science; in that context it makes more sense, as we have some missing topics in other subsections like Computer science#Theory of computation and Computer science#Algorithms and data structures.) Any comments? — Miym (talk) 10:53, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

You could just add any major omissions, such as Theory of Computation and Algorithmics Ben 1220 (talk) 04:20, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I thought algorithms was its own branch of CS? (see my section below)--Joanna Bryson (talk) 09:10, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I haven't a clue what the illustration tries to depict. This whole article is in need of a rewrite. Unfortunately, writing on a topic as broad as TCS can be hard. Most people probably wouldn't even agree on what is part of TCS. It would be good if we could find surveys or good references explaining what TCS is. For instance, I found this set of slides by Sanjeev Arora. An article would have been better though. --Robin (talk) 15:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Second sentence choice of fields

The second and third sentences of the article read: "These divisions and subsets include analysis of algorithms and formal semantics of programming languages. Technically, there are hundreds of divisions and subsets besides these two."

The statement is true but they're rather specific choices. Obviously fixing anything to enumerate is difficult but I'd suggest things which cover bigger chunks of TCS, i.e. "... theory of computation and complexity, syntax and semantics, and mathematical logic". 81.102.157.73 (talk) 23:57, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Theory of computation vs. Theoretical computer science

I'm just wondering about the relations between the present article and Theory of computation. (Actually I was prompted by the absence of thee French version of the later.)

(talk) 14:03, 5 September 2015 (UTC)CgavilanCgavilan (talk) 14:03, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Cgavilan (talk) 14:05, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Theoretical computer science/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Needs a better lede. It should explain what TCS is to the average encyclopedia reader. --Robin (talk) 17:39, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Last edited at 17:39, 22 October 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 20:16, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Remove the paragraph about theory vs practice?

The third paragraph of the article, starting with "In this list..." is poorly written ("theory people"?!), and it is not clear to me what purpose does it serve (warning the reader that some theorists are snobs?!). Aviad.rubinstein (talk) 19:49, 15 December 2017 (UTC)