Saturday, 24 January 2015
Why Geeks Should Know How to Write
The art of writing predates computers for thousands of years. It is used to record history, express ideas, teach, and inspire human beings. Geeks, aka computer scientists, need to know how to write for three important reasons. To record works and discoveries that have been done during research, to communicate with other scholars form other disciplines, and to promote computer science to the general public. For anyone who is undertaking a project, something which computer scientists absolutely must do, they need to record the past stuff that they have done or discovered, and record it well, so that in the future they can understand what they have done or thoughts that they had had before, in case they forget it. It is extremely useful for their peers and students as well to understand what they have done, and this requires good writing, no ambiguity, so that their peers and students can continue their work and coordinate with what they are doing. Beyond their peers and students, computer scientists need to interact with other scholars as well, in fields ranging from mathematics, life sciences, and possibly even social sciences. Some of the most incredible breakthroughs in human history have been achieved via the collaboration of scholars from a variety of subjects. Computers, for example, were made possible by scientists who managed to sequence the human genomes, and through the interactions between mathematicians, scientists, and engineers, humans come up with a system of 0101010 codes. Writing then, is absolutely essential, as one cannot expect scholars from different background to understand computer scientists' lexicon. In continuation of the tradition of scholarly exchanges, one must know how to write. If computer scientists cannot write well, then they might endanger the entire field of computer science to simply something niche. There exists many misconceptions about what computer science is and what computer scientists do. No, they do not fix computers, and their work goes beyond simply making video games. These misconceptions can simply be solved if the 'geeks' of computer scientists learned how to write, to communicate with the public what they really do, to inspire people and to change their views of the subject, so as to continue and enhance the field of computer science, given a more diverse pool of students with different ideas -- but this can only start if the 'geeks' of computer science know how to write, persuasively, clearly, and informatively.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment