Chomsky: Obsolete?

[Margaret Fleck]

It is worth bearing in mind that Chomsky was in at the very start of the development
of formal grammar technology, essential to creating both compilers for computer
languages, formal models for linguistics, and algorithms for computational linguistics.
He is still cited in the undergraduate computer science curriculum for that reason.

He was also a key figure in pushing everyone to develop models that were well-enough
formalized that they could be tested, first by hand and eventually using computers.

Even if you don't like his specific models, and you think his later work is unhelpfully
detached from reality, you have to give him credit for these earlier contributions.

Margaret