[sdiy] Help for a budding young engineer...

[Olivier Gillet]

> If you're going to recommend CS courses I have to add that in addition to
> automata theory one should also learn about logic (predicate calculus,
> natural deduction, model theory). Some people actually like logic better
> than automata theory (which can get very tedious if you do more interesting
> proofs). Logic is also much more useful in the real world because of it's
> applications in modelling, artificial intelligence, robotics etc. For an EE
> who wants to do embedded work both are essential when it comes to model
> checking or dealing with correctness issues in digital design at the gate
> level. Some theoretical computer scientists like automata and complexity
> theory better than logic or the other way around. It's comparable to
> calculus vs. linear algebra. But perhaps an EE should not meddle in the
> affairs of the CS for he is much more valuable when he sticks to the things
> that CS people normally do not understand. ;-)

Actually, logic was part of the same class (automata -> turing
machines -> combinators -> lambda calculus -> curry howard isomorphism
<- formal logic) - it's hard to draw a border between these topics.

I don't really believe in the categorization of things into EE/CS --
actually, the place where I studied never made the distinction and
allowed students to float between the two areas. There are far too
many important problems at the frontier of the two - Is speech
recognition an EE or CS problem? What about formal verification and
synthesis of digital circuit? Embedded software development? Digital
communications?

Indeed, seeking a learning environment in which it's possible to
escape this dichotomy might be a good thing.

Olivier