Abstract

The fundamental assumptions in Dijkstra's influential article on computing science teaching are challenged. Dijkstra's paper presents the radical novelties of computing, and the consequent problems that we must tackle through a formal, logic-based approach to program derivation. Dijkstra's main premise is that the algorithmic programming paradigm is the only one, in fact, the only possible one. It is argued that there is at least one other, the network-programming paradigm, which itself is a radical novelty with respect to the implementation of problems on computers. And, as one might expect of a radical alternative, it shows much of the conventional wisdom concerning computing science, which Dijkstra variously attacks and dispenses, to be special pleading; not universals of computing at all. Finally, we explore what is known of this new paradigm in order to see what light it sheds on the fundamental problems that computing really does present to us. Not surprisingly, some b...

Citations