The principles for the investigation of the historical development of computer science

Abstract

The paper proposes the principles of publicity of historical process, consequency, and paradigmality. Depending on their significance, historical events are classified into critical, epochal, key, and occasional events. Local and global events are differentiated and possible variants of representation of local events at the global level are determined. The paper describes variants of correlation between the new paradigm and the old one, such as total rejection, partial rejection, mergence, and co-existence. It proves that the last variant is more characteristic of computer science. An attempt is made to distinguish “computer science” from “information science.”