The author addresses the question of whether there is, in fact, a crisis in computer science education by quoting extensively from three computer scientists, two of whom are David Parnas and Edsger Dijkstra. He reviews their criticisms that computer science is “infantile and immature” and that many people in industry distrust the computing qualifications of computer science graduates. The author is not prepared to answer the question in the title directly but instead proposes a research question: “To what extent does ACM/IEEE-CS’s Computing Curricula 1991 meet the needs of stakeholders in computer science education?” Evidence for whether or not there is an actual crisis will result from the investigation of this question.

There is unease and dissatisfaction with computer science education, to the extent of questioning what is meant by computer science. In this short note, the author proposes a question that can serve as a basis for self-examination by the computer science community.