Computing - programming - informatics: genesis in the scientific field

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a study of general scientific importance: analysis of the genesis of programming. The process was triggered by the emergence of computers and development of appropriate software. The study has both theoretical and practical value, and its results can be extended to similar scientific phenomena. The author substantiates the leadership of Andrei Petrovich Ershov, the first programmer (1931-1988) elected to the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1971. The paper deals with the situation with programming in the USSR during the 1950s-1990s and the key players: research institutes of the Academy of Sciences and leading higher educational institutions of the Soviet Union. It follows from the theoretical discourse that "science" and "subject" are related as general and specific. The term "subject" is associated with teaching, and the difference between a scientific subject and a subject taught at school or university is in the amount of information offered to a student while the basis remains the same. The formation of programming as a new kind of activity and a cognitive phenomenon has been traced in the context of mathematics, computing and cybernetics. A. P. Ershov is shown to have played a crucial role in substantiating the theoretical basis of programming. After his death, programming acquired a totally different form, and an important reason for this was the loss of a leader of his scale, vision, historical identity and personal charm. No one was able to replace him, and one of the explanations may be that programming was at the stage of branching off, penetrating into various spheres of life and strengthening its position as a phenomenon useful for society. The formation of programming with the Academy of Sciences during the late Soviet period had three stages: 1. From 1951 to the mid-1950s: the topoi stage, or formation of the professional community of software specialists (programmers) from mathematicians, physicists and calculationists. 2. From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s: the separation stage, or growth and self-determination of the programming community; emergence of specific projects, publications, citation network, conferences, origin of paradigms and schools of programming. These processes took part in the period of the development of domestic first-generation computing machines. 3. From the mid-1960s to the 1980s: maturity, or studies of categories in programming, establishment of informatics as a science dealing with information processes occurring in society and their technological component, enrichment of the theoretical basis, high school computerization and creation of applied mathematics departments and chairs. The processes occurring at that time in the Soviet science and technology policy actually resulted in the removal of the USSR Academy of Sciences from the Unified Computer System, a project of expertise policy in computer engineering and programming. The consolidation of academic and departmental programmers within the frames of the Interdepartmental Commission for Systems Software led by A. P. Ershov was not completed.