The existential crisis of 'Computer Science'
Description
A screenshot of a tweet from the user 'Programming sucks' (@UserInputSucks), whose profile picture is a black circle with a yellow box stating 'CSS SUCKS'. The tweet itself reads: '"computer science" isnt really about computers and it isnt really a science but here we are anyway'. This is a classic, cynical observation popular in the developer community. The joke highlights the abstract nature of the field; it's fundamentally about computation, logic, and information theory, not the physical machines themselves - a sentiment famously articulated by figures like Edsger Dijkstra. It also pokes fun at whether CS is a 'hard science' like physics, as it's often closer to mathematics or engineering. The resigned 'but here we are anyway' captures the pragmatic attitude of developers who have to get work done regardless of the philosophical debates
Comments
11Comment deleted
Calling it 'Computer Science' was the field's first major abstraction layer, and like most abstractions, it's leaky as hell
Computer science: we studied Turing machines, but our day job is naming things and persuading finance that latency shows up on the P&L
After 20 years in the field, you realize computer science is neither about computers nor science - it's about convincing stakeholders that O(n²) is acceptable 'for now' while secretly knowing the technical debt will outlive your tenure
Ah yes, Computer Science: where we spend four years proving we don't need computers to compute, then spend our careers proving it's not really science when the production deploy fails at 3 AM. At least we're consistent in our inconsistency - much like the field's relationship with the scientific method versus 'works on my machine' empiricism
Computer science isn’t about computers or science; it’s applied sociology with logs - getting humans and eventually consistent systems to agree just long enough to ship
CS: Where computers are optional, but proving undecidability is mandatory - prod crashes optional
Computer science isn’t about computers or science; it’s proving FLP and CAP, then shipping a mostly-consistent system and getting paged at 03:00
Yep https://youtu.be/2Op3QLzMgSY Comment deleted
Algo and data structures Comment deleted
Tru Comment deleted
German lol Comment deleted