Recently, i ran into a essay by
by Edsger W Dijkstra, titled
"The strengths of the academic enterprise". (1994)
I think it is fitting in particular of the recent r6rs fiasco.
The full essay is here:
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD11xx/EWD1175.html
Below are some excerpts:
$B!V(B
...
My third remark introduces you to the Buxton Index ... The Buxton
Index of an entity, i.e. person or organization, is defined as the
length of the period, measured in years, over which the entity makes
its plans. For the little grocery shop around the corner it is about
1/2,for the true Christian it is infinity, and for most other entities
it is in between: about 4 for the average politician who aims at his
re-election, slightly more for most industries, but much less for the
managers who have to write quarterly reports. The Buxton Index is an
important concept because close co-operation between entities with
very different Buxton Indices invariably fails and leads to moral
complaints about the partner. The party with the smaller Buxton Index
is accused of being superficial and short-sighted, while the party
with the larger Buxton Index is accused of neglect of duty, of backing
out of its responsibility, of freewheeling, etc.. In addition, each
party accuses the other one of being stupid. The great advantage of
the Buxton Index is that, as a simple numerical notion, it is morally
neutral and lifts the difference above the plane of moral concerns.
The Buxton Index is important to bear in mind when considering
academic/industrial co-operation.
... Just for being different and doing things the uneducated cannot
understand, the academics are hated and feared, vide Socrates,
executed in 399 BC$B"w(B, Archimedes, killed in 212 BC$B"w(B, and, more
recently, Hypatia$B"w(B, AD 415 barbarously murdered by a Christian mob.
The original Oxford Colleges were buildings fortified in order to
protect the students against the rabble, and if you think that that is
old hat, I refer you to the DDR or the People's Republic of China of
only 25 years ago. It is a miracle whenever, these days, the academic
world is tolerated at all; personally I am convinced that what
tolerance there is would completely disappear, were the academic world
to become secretive.
President Reagan did not seem to see it that way, but even regimes of
modest insight seem to understand that, as a corrective measure, the
gadfly's sting is indispensable. The university has therefore the task
to nurture the authority of the sting, both for its own protection and
as a service to mankind. Aforementioned openness and honesty, though
essential, are not enough; we should add a ruthless striving for
perfection, ruthless in the sense that, on campus, there is no
academically valid excuse for compromises.
The sting also defines the social responsibility of the universities.
The question is: do we offer what society asks for, or do we offer
what society needs? If the two coincide, there is no problem, but
often they don't, and in computing such coincidence is extremely rare.
In case of discrepancy, you must ignore what they ask for and give
what they need, ignore what they would like and tell them what they
don't want to hear but need to know. There are two compelling reasons
for this uncompromising position.
...
... what society overwhelmingly asks for is snake oil. Of course, the
snake oil has the most impressive names --otherwise you would be
selling nothing-- like "Structured Analysis and Design", "Software
Engineering", "Maturity Models", "Management Information Systems",
"Integrated Project Support Environments" "Object Orientation" and
"Business Process Re-engineering" (the latter three being known as
IPSE, OO and BPR, respectively). The external pressures to do the
wrong thing are enormous, but yielding to them would be fatal for the
academic enterprise, while resisting the pressure reinforces its
strengths. The pressures are, in fact, so strong that I do not know a
university where there is not some faculty or some department that has
yielded, but there should be no mercy for snake oil pedlars on campus.
[When a professor is no better than James Martin, he should start a
business instead.]
$B!W(B
-----------------------
Xah's Note: The republic of China mentioned above refers to the
Cultural Revolution (a political strugle started by Mao Zedong, where
students persecuted and killed professors and professionals. (wikip
states half a million killed)).
For film depictions, see:
$B!z(B http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_My_Concubine_(film)
$B!z(B http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Live
Socrates (one of the greatest philosopher of antiquity) is ordered to
be killed politically because he refused to bulk his teachings.
Wikip quote: $B!V(BSocrates was tried and convicted by the courts of
democratic Athens on a charge of corrupting the youth and disbelieving
in the ancestral gods.$B!W(B
Archimedes is the greatest mathematician of antiquity, and one of or
possibly the one greatest mathematician of all times. He was killed by
a soldier.
Hypatia is one of the great matheamtician, and the very first female
mathematician. She was murdured by Christians. (draged naked to death)
(i named one of my servers in dotcome time as Hypatia, and have naked
pict of her here:
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/lacru/Charles_William_Mitchell.html
)
Convenient wikip links:
$B!z(B http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
$B!z(B http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates
$B!z(B http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes
$B!z(B http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia
--------------------------
over all i liked this essay. However, it seems a bit of a unfocused
and ranty and not very cogent for me. For example, he indicates the
importance of universities by first citing it is "... 66 institutions
have enjoyed a continuously visible identity since 1530". This seems
quaint to me. He didn't explain exactly what source or report this is
based on. (e.g. does that include Asia?)
His main point about how Academicians shouldn't yield to outside
pressures, overall i think is very good idea. However, the way he
expressed it does not seems very concrete to me. For example, he has
mentioned in the article that universities function as a sting to
society, but in later parts of the essay, the way he expressed how
business shouldn't work with universities, seems to entail the
opposite danger where academecians become a bunch of effete group
doing no fundamental research and have no idea what goverments and
business in real world is like, but cloistered in his ivory tower
playing with their own cocks.
I think Edsger prob doesn't want this, but the way he expressed his
ideas in his later parts of the essay kinda entangle it.
In general, i think here are some main issues:
$B!z(B (1) should universities yield to current status and trends from
politics and business.
$B!z(B (2) should, or could, universities work with corporations/
governments?
$B!z(B (3) the concept that universities is a cloistered entity.
I think most parties would agree that (1) is bad. That is, i think
both academicians and perhaps most industrial/goverment people would
largely agree that academy's researchs should not be dictated or
influenced much by current needs and trends. But more for the pure
research, fundamental questions, or long-term goals.
As for (2), Edsger's clearly indicates no. Personally, i'm not sure
about that. He used the "Buxton Index" to show incompatibilities.
("buxton index"?! what a quait idea) Other than this, he doesn't give
much reasons. Whether schools and business can coorporate fruitfully
depends on many things and aspects such as what is meant by
coorporation, and what defines success... surely corporations can give
school the much needed money and school can produce immediate useful
results sometimes and this has happened a lot. Of course such short-
term gain may be a long-term damage... but in general his assertion
that schools and business should not work together isn't convincing to
me.
For (3), the concept is not well defined... it could bring different
pictures to different people. For example, he pictured it such that
schools should be aloof in their pursuit of perfection in pure
research, thus schools should not yield or work with businesses.
However, from another perspective, academics can be sometimes or often
(as happened in history) become corrupt and effete that they enclose
themselves doing dead reseach or day-dreaming and have little to no
effect on their society or students. (personally, i perceive many (US)
academecians to be like this... throwing grand jargon amongst and
pleasure themselves and understand little of what or how real is
functioning and having no impact on society)
... above are some of my thoughts on reading Edsger's essay. I don't
think this essay of his is very good, but anyway the above's the rant
of my own. His essay is of interest to schemers because schemers face
the same question of the relationships of Industry and University
about Scheme the lang, in particular the recent R6RS controversy.
(am not really in Scheme community, but i think R6RS is not good and
Scheme implementators should unite politically to oppose it. (by, for
example, refuse to implement it, or implement just the part you think
is good.) One particular thing about the R6RS i've read is that the
voting system used is a any-Joe system. i.e. any moron, can vote, by
just having sufficient intelligence to write a letter expressing their
fandom, to be onboard. And, seems to me those 1/3 who opposed R6RS are
mostly older, more experienced Schemers or implementators ... (no,
don't quote me ..., because i haven't verified much of my claims))
Xah
ยทยทยท@xahlee.org
$B-t(B http://xahlee.org/