A Brief History of Applied Computing in Brazil

The Applied Computing (AC) field of research in Brazil, yet to become consolidated, has grown in importance because of its close relationship to other areas. Thanks to its novelty, little is known regarding its ways of doing scientific research. The recently created Brazilian Journal of Applied Computing (RBCA, in Portuguese) is a representative journal of this focus. Then, in order to have some insight on AC research, the production registered in RBCA has been analyzed. Three analyses have been done: prevalent Scientific Paradigm, Maturity Style and Scientific Approach, over the last 5 years. A checklist has been conceived to help cope with subjectiveness of the Paradigm analysis. All papers were assessed at least two times and most of them three times by different groups. After 501 analyses over three rounds it was found that AC research is, most of all, Technocratic, of beginning Maturity levels and present Development and Descriptive approaches. These features suggest that researchers in AC field have Engineering bias which is reasonable considering the "application" point of view. However, for AC, to become a Computer Science discipline, it seems important that AC researchers use more rigorous scientific methods in order to reach higher levels of credibility.