From: utzoo!utcsrgv!jrc
Newsgroups: net.misc
Title: Re: Computer Science
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.403
Posted: Fri Jun 18 11:32:58 1982
Received: Fri Jun 18 11:42:00 1982
References: duke.2223


All this discussion on the (mis)nomer "Computer Science" for the
particular discipline in which we all play some part seems like
a waste.  I would think that the majority of us realize that the
discipline which we in North America like to call Computer Science
certainly includes many aspects which can be (and are) studied
quite independently of the existence of computing machinery.

Perhaps the most reasonable solution to the controversy would be to
adopt the standard name used by the most of the rest of the world
for our discipline: Informatics, or possibly Information Science.
This would seem to better capture the nature of our study, and avoid
the implication that our only interest is in computing machines.

The case for the name Informatics boils down to the same argument
as the one for adopting the Metric system: communication and
standardization with the rest of the world.

Informatics, Information Science, Informatik, Informatique, -
every place has a better name for it than us.

				Jim Cordy
				CSRG, U. of Toronto