Computer science is embodied mathematics... It stands to reason that some trends would be reproduced.
The divide discussed in the article is definitely quite real. There's a fairly significant bunch of young mathematicians who develop software and do extensive computer exploration to identify interesting patterns and attack hard problems in combinatorics. But learning to be actually good at this requires a significant investment of time, meaning that our programming problem solvers are even further removed from the trendy world of algebraic geometry. Just yesterday I was hearing a story of an algebraic geometer who worked with the late, great Alain Lascoux. Lascoux did some interesting computations, which the geometer dropped in his talk without mention of where the numbers came from. He was quite resistant to think of the skill of actually computing these numbers as a real skill with merit...
There is a real need for problem solving; it can illuminate new directions when the combinatorics of combining existing theorems becomes exhausting. But it does seem to be rather undervalued in a world dominated by algebraic geometers and such.
The divide discussed in the article is definitely quite real. There's a fairly significant bunch of young mathematicians who develop software and do extensive computer exploration to identify interesting patterns and attack hard problems in combinatorics. But learning to be actually good at this requires a significant investment of time, meaning that our programming problem solvers are even further removed from the trendy world of algebraic geometry. Just yesterday I was hearing a story of an algebraic geometer who worked with the late, great Alain Lascoux. Lascoux did some interesting computations, which the geometer dropped in his talk without mention of where the numbers came from. He was quite resistant to think of the skill of actually computing these numbers as a real skill with merit...
There is a real need for problem solving; it can illuminate new directions when the combinatorics of combining existing theorems becomes exhausting. But it does seem to be rather undervalued in a world dominated by algebraic geometers and such.