Research methods in computer science

Computer Science as a research discipline has always struggled with its identity. On the one hand, it is a field deeply rooted in mathematics which resulted in strong theories.¹ For example, there is computational complexity theory (turing machines, the halting problem), database theory (the relational model, expresive power of query languages), formal language theory (the chomsky hierarchy, well-formedness, formal semantics). On the other hand, it is a field deeply rooted in engineering which resulted in machines that have completely warped our society: the von Neumann architecture (the basis for digital computers), parallel processors (the new generation of multi-core machines), distributed computers (a prerequisite for the success of the internet and recent phenomena like grid computing). Consequently, computer science has inherited its research methods from the same disciplines: on the one hand, the mathematical approach with axioms, postulates and proofs; on the other hand the engineering approach with quantification, measurements and comparison.