How Rasmus Lerdorf might approach Computer Science
Computer science. People throw that word around, like it’s some grand, mystical discipline. But really, it's just engineering for the abstract machine. What’s the problem? You need to move data, process it, make it do something useful. That’s it. It’s about building things that work.
I look at a problem, say, making a web page display some dynamic information. You could build this elaborate system, layers upon layers of abstraction, all these fancy theories. Or, you could just write some code that does the job, fast and direct. That’s what I cared about. We had servers humming, pages to generate, users waiting. You don't have time for academic debates when the server's breathing down your neck.
Why make it complicated? If you need to parse a string, write a function that parses the string. If you need to connect to a database, make the connection happen. It’s about the tools, the techniques that get the job done reliably and efficiently. Performance matters. If your system is slow, no matter how "scientifically" designed it is, it's a failure. It just doesn't work for the people using it.
This whole idea of "computer science" as some ivory tower pursuit, I never got that. It’s about hands-on, practical problem-solving. It's about figuring out how to build the engine, not just drawing pretty blueprints. Keep it simple, make it fast, and ensure it just works. That's good engineering. That's what matters.
Imagined perspective — an AI synthesis grounded in Rasmus Lerdorf’s recorded ideas and methods, not a quotation or a statement they actually made.