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No, but it might be better to have CS supporting a degree is Physics, for instance. Is CS really that rich of a "science" to spend 12 years getting a PhD? Is it really a science at all? I have seen some pretty silly doctorial work; comparable work in Physics or EE would not really be allowed, at least in the big schools. There are some areas, of course. As someone that has worked as a CTO and a CIO in the product space and has had to fire PhDs (from places like MIT, no less,) I am some what sceptical of CS degrees, at least in applied areas.

It might have been more meaningful 20 years ago, but now a lot of those problems are solved.

You know most of the greats on the pure research side did not have CS degrees at all - Knuth, Kay, McCarthy. A good many of them ended up with Turing prizes.

Well, it is a discussion...

"Is CS really that rich of a "science" to spend 12 years getting a PhD? "

Yes, it is, and that is why such comments are so sad. We have left our profession to the MBAs. 99% of the software out there is junk and very poorly designed. Well, it isn't really designed at all. It happens by accident.

BTW, a PhD is about 7-8 years total, not 12. No Masters required.

"Is CS really that rich of a "science" to spend 12 years getting a PhD?"

As a PhD in CS, er ... yes. Theoretic CS (algs to applied Math), to CAD/VLSI algorithms (designing solutions to automatically solve complex IC design tasks), to computer architecture and engineering (ie architecting the most complex creations man has made), to AI (ie understanding the concepts of thinking, memory etc.), to software (which by itself covers large ground, ie optimization to computer languages to ).

CS is the most knowledge-intensive field one can think of, actually, since it touches on so many other fertile areas from cognitive sciences to math to electrical engineering.

" Is it really a science at all?"

Most of CS is really a form of Engineering, which is why they are generally in schools of Engineering, and the better programs are "EECS or "ECE" (electrical and computer engineerings) depts (eg how U Mich. and Berkeley does it), and not a CS dept in the Liberal Arts college.
But "Computer Engineering" is a narrower term, ie engineering of computers. Computer Science has been defined as the science of anything to do with computers.

" I have seen some pretty silly doctorial work; comparable work in Physics or EE would not really be allowed, at least in the big schools."

dang, you read my thesis, have you? :-)

"You know most of the greats on the pure research side did not have CS degrees at all - Knuth, Kay, McCarthy. A good many of them ended up with Turing prizes."

Cheap shot. They were educated *before* CS really took off as a field (which was in the 1960s and 1970s).

Nevertheless, CS touches other fields so there is oppty for someone in other fields/depts to contribute to CS and vice versa. E.g. any good applied mathematician can work in theoretical computer science and/or algorithms, if they want to study those problems.

As one of my applied math profs used to say:

"Whats the difference between CS and applied math?"
"About $10,000 a year" (more for the CS profs)

I have a friend at UCSD who was the resident "principal programmer" for 4.3BSD around 1986. His doctoral thesis resulted in a patent for the UC system. The topic was an algorithm to eliminate write delays on a RAID array. He was one of the first people in the world to do anything that could be reasonably called RAID. Subsequently, he designed the disk subsystems that are the core of the Walmart database systems. They turn over 95% of over 12 GB of data every day. He also has an BSEE and MSEE prior to the PhD in CS. There really is some very good stuff going on...if you look carefully.