Fundamental Names in Computer Science

Consider some fundamental names: Turing (computation theory and programmable automata), von Neumann (computer architecture), Shannon (information theory), Knuth, Hoare, Dijkstra, and Wirth (programming theory and algorithmics), Feigenbaum and McCarthy (artificial intelligence), Codd (relational model of databases), Chen (entity-relationship model), Lamport (distributed systems), Zadeh (fuzzy logic), Meyer (object-oriented programming), Gamma (design patterns), Cerf (Internet), Berners-Lee (WWW)... Are their contributions perhaps distinguished by their experimental character? Aren't they mainly, or even solely, speculative investigations (yet with enormous possibilities for practical application), light the way for the rest of the scientific community, by performing, so to speak, a work clarification and development of concepts? Would they have been able to publish their work according to the "experimentalistic" criteria that currently prevail?

Notes:

The author uses this list as proof that computer science can be an inductive discipline, but a list of successes is useless for this argument. All of these "fundamental names" are such because their theories were proven in the real world. It's a selective list. We need to see a list of all theorists and then gauge how well induction works versus empiricism.

It does make a good list of big names and their contributions.

Folksonomies: theoretical vs experimental

Taxonomies:
/finance/personal finance/financial planning/retirement and pension (0.589948)
/education/alumni and reunions (0.552104)
/science/social science/philosophy (0.489529)

Keywords:
entity-relationship model (0.953383 (neutral:0.000000)), programmable automata (0.935223 (neutral:0.000000)), von Neumann (0.926570 (neutral:0.000000)), fundamental names (0.923829 (positive:0.247623)), fuzzy logic (0.913632 (negative:-0.381019)), computation theory (0.911337 (neutral:0.000000)), artificial intelligence (0.908022 (negative:-0.317874)), relational model (0.907827 (neutral:0.000000)), enormous possibilities (0.906912 (positive:0.348486)), information theory (0.906780 (neutral:0.000000)), em>clarification and development of concepts? (0.905758 (neutral:0.000000)), design patterns (0.902679 (neutral:0.000000)), object-oriented programming (0.899050 (neutral:0.000000)), experimental character (0.890582 (positive:0.244626)), speculative investigations (0.888718 (negative:-0.379077)), inductive discipline (0.883041 (negative:-0.490482)), practical application (0.875656 (positive:0.348486)), scientific community (0.874180 (positive:0.341074)), selective list (0.870066 (positive:0.210259)), fundamental names\ (0.867546 (positive:0.330100)), good list (0.856308 (positive:0.566813)), real world (0.852913 (neutral:0.000000)), big names (0.846082 (positive:0.566813)), Codd (0.695488 (neutral:0.000000)), Lamport (0.692425 (neutral:0.000000)), Zadeh (0.692163 (neutral:0.000000)), Hoare (0.692035 (neutral:0.000000)), Feigenbaum (0.691478 (neutral:0.000000)), work (0.688660 (neutral:0.000000)), Dijkstra (0.683100 (neutral:0.000000))

Entities:
computer science:FieldTerminology (0.874298 (negative:-0.490482)), object-oriented programming:FieldTerminology (0.763652 (neutral:0.000000)), fuzzy logic:FieldTerminology (0.735108 (negative:-0.381019)), artificial intelligence:FieldTerminology (0.704194 (negative:-0.317874)), Feigenbaum:Person (0.703375 (neutral:0.000000)), Berners-Lee:Person (0.695097 (neutral:0.000000)), Dijkstra:Person (0.689161 (neutral:0.000000)), Shannon:Person (0.687928 (neutral:0.000000)), Chen:Person (0.663116 (neutral:0.000000)), Meyer:Person (0.659814 (neutral:0.000000)), Wirth:Person (0.657901 (neutral:0.000000)), Gamma:Company (0.653600 (neutral:0.000000)), McCarthy:Person (0.630373 (neutral:0.000000))

Is Computer Science Truly Scientific

Periodicals>Journal Article: Genova, Gonzalo (July 2010), Is Computer Science Truly Scientific, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 53 No. 2, 37-39, New York, NY, Retrieved on -0001-11-30