Thanks, Steve, for the thought-provoking question. I think rumors of the death of computer science probably mask the fact that most of the world is probably getting by on the fruits of the labor of the first few generations of real computer scientists. I'm not an apocalyptic person, but it does seem to me that a lot of the ignoring of computer science fundamentals that seems to be going around will come to a head and force a kind of reckoning. Maybe not a collapse of computing but an upheaval that will make people realize that, as you said, there is value in algorithms, solving puzzles like the Towers of Hanoi, and knowing how information is processed (databases included, of course).

There haven't always been computers, but there will always be information, and so there will always be a need for people who know the principles of working with information. I think for now there is a kind of laziness (I mean practically, not as a moral judgment) about how computer stuff "just works" without a realization of the immense training and effort that makes it "just work."

Just my two cents.

- webrunner