CS != Programming

While teaching the Computer Science students in an engineering college, i had this strange feelings that CS != Programming... The theoretical aspects of computer science which the students usually learn in the engineering college will never help them become proficient programmers... many people would shun this point of view... some times back i interacted with one of my colleagues who insisted that programming is only  small part of computer science world... however i feel that it is the most important part of the computer science... with the wake of Test Driven Development and other Agile processes, when the long quality process is loosing its significance, its only good efficient programming that remains the most significant factor of the software project development... i believe that one can get a CS degree without even  having a computer... but one cannot develop and design software that runs without getting his hands dirty with debugger, breakpoint, issues with memory leaks and so on...

Patent and Copyright - from my perspective

today during our breakfast my wife asked me a question about the difference between patent and copyright... while answering her queries, i reminded her how the way we create patents of software these days has become an hindrance to innovation... if one is not convinced see this or this... think about the situation had all the basic scientific theories (e.g. newton’s law of motion and gravity, Archimedes's principles, Einstein's theory of relativity, the knowledge of periodic table and in-numerous chemical reactions or the basic ideas of zero and decimals) being patented and copyrighted, where would our scientific exploration have gone so far? from another angle had the Almighty patented air, water, earth, fire or so many of His living creatures on whom we do scientific experimentation, where would our mankind and civilization stand today?or even had we have to pay royalty to the community of cows for their milk or to the community of plants and vegetables for their own products, where would we go for the money?