tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Is theoretical computer science 'fair game' for MO?)

Suresh Venkat comments on "Is theoretical computer science 'fair game' for MO?" (6669)

Suresh Venkat — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 22:20:34 -0700

@jacques. It's an insane formula, and I am very annoyed by it. In fact, I was so annoyed I discovered that there's another open-source package that essentially clones SO v1, and if all else fails, we'll either invade MO wholesale, or create one without these crazy rules.

Dougy comments on "Is theoretical computer science 'fair game' for MO?" (6666)

Dougy — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 19:53:21 -0700

@Jacques, I think the answer to your question is here: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/53650/area-51-commit-percent

Jacques Carette comments on "Is theoretical computer science 'fair game' for MO?" (6636)

Jacques Carette — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 05:46:17 -0700

@geomblog: My intention is to follow both. [But I don't understand why the UI proposal is 19% complete with 49 commits and TCS is 17% complete with 169!]

Suresh Venkat comments on "Is theoretical computer science 'fair game' for MO?" (6556)

Suresh Venkat — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:11:20 -0700

I saw this late, and thought I'd jump in. I'm one of the TCS folks who's been pushing the TCS proposal. not because I don't like MO (I do !) but because (as I mentioned to Greg Kuperberg on a different blog) it's getting difficult to sift through the flood of MO posts to find things more closely related to TCS, even with very aggressive tag filtering that I have in place. Also, there aren't many TCS folks on MO (this is a chicken and egg problem, I agree :)).

The TO site has got a reasonable amount of committed support, but it's unclear whether it will make it to beta. If it doesn't, even the fact that enough people committed makes me hopeful that these people can be persuaded to come over to MO and become participants here.

Jacques Carette comments on "Is theoretical computer science 'fair game' for MO?" (6353)

Jacques Carette — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:07:00 -0700

Now I just need to get my fellow colleagues who work on 'mechanized mathematics' to take a good look at MO!

Steve Huntsman comments on "Is theoretical computer science 'fair game' for MO?" (6349)

Steve Huntsman — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:22:56 -0700

I agree that TCS is fine here, as are truly mathematical questions about statistics (though there aren't very many of these).

Andy Putman comments on "Is theoretical computer science 'fair game' for MO?" (6348)

Andy Putman — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:19:46 -0700

As I said in the other question, I think that TCS is solid mainstream mathematics. If researchers in it don't feel welcome here, then I think we need to change our attitudes!

Kevin Lin comments on "Is theoretical computer science 'fair game' for MO?" (6344)

Kevin Lin — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:25:11 -0700

I think it is very welcome here. We've had many TCS questions so far.

François G. Dorais comments on "Is theoretical computer science 'fair game' for MO?" (6343)

François G. Dorais — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:23:00 -0700

I'll plug this again in case someone missed it -- there is a TCS proposal on Area 51.

Jacques Carette comments on "Is theoretical computer science 'fair game' for MO?" (6337)

Jacques Carette — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:45:16 -0700

I figured I would ask this question directly. The main reason is that the answer to this might require a rewording of what MO is about, to be more welcoming to a broader community of 'practicing mathematicians'.

My bias is clear: I think TCS is a flavour of math, in the same way that algebra, analysis and geometry are all flavours of mathematics. I've tried StackOverflow for some questions, and quickly found out that that community (of programmers) does not appreciate questions of a more theoretical nature.

And there seems to be a number of us here already (sigfpe, Andrej Bauer, Neel K. to name a few). I know I have explicitly sought their questions and answers on MO, because their interests 'resonate' with mine.