To the Liberal Arts, He Adds Computer Science

October 31, 2002

By STEVE LOHR

PRINCETON, N.J. -- TALL and slender with a flowing beard,

dressed in a gray sweater and jeans, Brian Kernighan works

his audience with a fast patter and a ready smile. The

challenge he has set for himself is to demystify computing

for a classroom full of liberal arts undergraduates at

Princeton.

It so happens that Mr. Kernighan, 60, is a renowned

computer scientist, a member of the Bell Labs team of the

late 1960's and 70's that developed and nurtured the Unix

operating system and the C programming language,

innovations with a far-reaching impact on computing. He is

also a best-selling author of technical books on

programming that have sold millions of copies and been

translated into more than 20 languages.

None of that really matters in this course, "Computers in

Our World." The students are headed toward degrees in

politics, history, English, art history, psychology and

economics. Unlike many college students in the dot-com boom

years of the late 90's, they have no plans to make a

killing, or even a living, in the technology business.

Yet at a time when the corporate world and Wall Street are

in the funk of a technology hangover, the students in Mr.

Kernighan's class have a perspective that seems a

levelheaded antidote to the prevailing gloom, based on

conversations with a few of them. They have no illusions

that computing is a silver bullet for the economy or a

sure-fire path to riches. But they grew up surrounded by

personal computers and cellphones. E-mail, instant

messaging, Web searches, online shopping and swapping MP3

music files are second nature to them. They understand that

computing is the modern tool used for everything from

Hollywood special effects to unraveling the secrets of the

human genome.

They don't believe that digital technology is inundating

modern life at the alarming speed of "a Bengali typhoon,"

as Wired magazine once put it, but view it more as a rising

tide whose impact is spreading steadily. Computing, they

figure, is a good thing to know more about and to

understand in a deeper way - while satisfying that pesky

requirement that all Princeton students must take a course

in "quantitative reasoning."

Mr. Kernighan, it seems, has made some encouraging progress

with the fall semester class. The students do projects like

making their own Web pages and writing a few simple

programs. And they speak of a new appreciation for

computers and moments of epiphany along the way.

"I've always used computers, but I had no prior knowledge

of what goes on inside them," said Lori Piranian, a

freshman. "Taking the course has given me a new respect for

computing. It's amazing what goes into a computer and the

history of how we got to where we are now."

Mr. Kernighan's course is a kind of intellectual

smorgasbord, combining public policy - like technology's

impact on privacy, copyright and antitrust matters - with

large helpings of practical knowledge of how things work,

from operating systems to disk drives. Still, some students

said that the single class session that made the strongest

impression was Mr. Kernighan's lecture on binary numbers,

also known as binary digits or bits. In his talk, Mr.

Kernighan explained that everything a PC does - handling

text, music or video - is all just a matter of processing

1's and 0's to the machine. The difference between today's

multimedia notebooks and the room-size calculators of

computing's early days, he notes, is mainly faster

bit-processing engines and increasingly clever software.

"What you come to understand," said Joseph Falencki, a

junior, "is how simple, yet how complicated, a computer

really is. That was the 'aha' moment for me."

After a late-October class, Mr. Kernighan explained that

his goal in the course was to impart an intelligent

skepticism about computer technology, an informed sense of

its possibilities and limitations. "And you can't do that

in the abstract," he said, which is why programming and

projects are essential elements in his course. Smiling, he

mentioned the often-quoted line from the science-fiction

writer Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced

technology is indistinguishable from magic." A wonderful

phrase, Mr. Kernighan said, "but there is no magic."

Mr. Kernighan acquired his taste for teaching while on a

year's leave from Bell Labs in 1996 at Harvard, where he

taught an introductory computer science course. "I got an

enormous kick from it," he said. "To me, it felt the way it

must be for an actor onstage - the rush when it clicks, and

the letdown when it doesn't."

So four years later, when Princeton asked him to join the

faculty, Mr. Kernighan agreed and said he wanted to teach

computing to liberal arts students as well as his Advanced

Programming Techniques course in the computer science

department. His former colleagues were not surprised that

he turned to teaching, including teaching nontechnical

students.

"It's pretty clear that Brian has a continuing interest and

commitment to education - writing well-read books was how

this was first expressed," said Dennis Ritchie, creator of

the C language. Indeed, the best-read of his books is "The

C Programming Language," written with Mr. Ritchie and first

published in 1978. To professional programmers, the book is

known simply as "K & R." Most of the text, the programming

examples and problems came from Mr. Kernighan, whom Mr.

Ritchie calls "a fluent and charming writer on technical

subjects."

Mr. Kernighan genuinely enjoys translating his technical

field and explaining its significance for humanities

students. But in his understated way, he also thinks it is

something that must be done and perhaps contributes to the

greater good. "For better or worse, the people who become

leaders and decision makers in politics, law and business

are going to come from schools like Princeton," Mr.

Kernighan said. "What I'm trying to do is give them some of

the tools of the trade that will make it possible for them

to think intelligently about this technology for

themselves."

Such sentiments place Mr. Kernighan within the camp of

computer scientists who believe that computing deserves a

place in general education.

It is a point of view with a rich history, dating at least

as far back as the 60's at Dartmouth. As the impact of

computers spread through society, two professors, John G.

Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz, decided that Dartmouth students

should have hands-on experience with computers. With the

university's full-fledged support, they designed a computer

time-sharing system and a simple programming language,

Basic (Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code),

which proved to be an enduring contribution to computing.

Stripped-down versions of Basic became the programming

choice of the microcomputer industry in the mid-70's. One

variant, Microsoft Basic, was the founding product of the

world's biggest software maker.

Some computer scientists have pushed ever since to make

computing a central part of a liberal arts education. In

1999, a report by the National Research Council, an arm of

the National Academy of Sciences, titled "Being Fluent with

Information Technology" called for a broader definition of

computer education that would emphasize not just practical

skills but also concepts, principles and ideas. That is,

precisely the sort of course Mr. Kernighan is teaching at

Princeton.

In an October class focusing on computer operating systems,

he began with a newspaper article on the challenge

Microsoft faces from Linux, a descendant of the Unix

operating system that is distributed free and written and

debugged by a volunteer community of programmers.

(Incidentally, Mr. Kernighan gave Unix its name back at

Bell Labs in 1970.) The governments of China, Germany and

other nations are using and promoting Linux as an

alternative to Microsoft's Windows operating system. "It's

that important to them, to become less dependent on

Microsoft," Mr. Kernighan said. "To do that, they will use

Linux instead of a program written by one of the premier

technology companies in the world."

Twenty years ago, Mr. Kernighan observed, "Only nerds cared

about operating systems." Now, he added, the subject is a

public-policy issue, even front-page news occasionally.

He traffics in metaphor and analogy. The operating system

is a juggler, keeping several different programs running at

once - like balls in the air. He compares file folders,

which show links to files on the hard disk, to a library

card catalog, which "is not the books but the structural

information that tells where things are,'' like the file

folders in a computer system.

There is no mention in class of Mr. Kernighan's

distinguished background. But most of the students have run

a Google search or two on Mr. Kernighan and seem somewhat

impressed. "He wrote that book on the C language back at

Bell Labs a long time ago, before I was born," said Ms.

Piranian, who is all of 18.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/31/technology/circuits/31prof.html?ex=1037081885&ei=1&en=c28f8e8e768ae3ed