The reason I began with that inflammatory statement concerning comp-scientists is that comp-sci is a branch of mathematics,
I see this statement frequently, and it's almost always said by people who don't identify as computer scientists. I have a Bachelor's and Master's in computer science, am about a year away from a PhD in it, and I'm still not comfortable defining where exactly my field stands in regards to others. The best I can come up with is that it's a combination of math, science and engineering related to computation (the idea) and computers (the implementation).
The point he's trying to make with this statement - programs should be viewed as a natural expression of a solution, not a to-do list for a computer - is valid. But he ignores that while computer languages can be put in the same hierarchy as natural languages, they have properties that allow us to use math to prove or guarantee conditions.
Computer science is what you get when mathematics and philosophy have a child, and hire electrical engineering as a babysitter.
And have linguistics as a heavily involved uncle.
And with that breed pediculosis mysteriously turned inheritable.
A combination of math and engineering is what I've always thought myself. What aspects of computer science are actually science in your opinion?
In research. Our computer systems, despite being man-made, are complicated enough that we have to use the scientific method to understand their behavior.
If you're a professional developer, then there's probably litte, if any, science in your work. Much in the same way that mechanical engineering is not science, but physics is.