Conferences vs. Journal publications in CS

This was originally posted as a comment in the GPEMJournal blog:
http://gpemjournal.blogspot.com/2009/08/journal-publication-versus-conference.html

While deadlines, as well as all the follow-up review process which is needed to have a work considered for publication in journals, might directly affect the publishing preferences of many computer scientists towards conferences and workshops, these factors alone don't help me to understand why the same effect does not occur in other related areas. In other words, if these were two of the primary causes behind, we would see the same happening among, say, physicists and mathematicians. Yet this does not seem to be the case.

I sincerely believe that there is one simpler factor that could also be considered in the specific case of CS: the relative lack of maturity of the field regarding consolidated research methodologies and data analysis. Of course, working in a scientific field with less than 60 years do not help us much. We're often borrowing ideas and methodologies from other areas and, still, there's no concensus on, say, which statistical tests are more appropriate.

So, this may perhaps explain why someone in the CS field might think that it's no use considering to fufill journal reviewers and editors' requests - who are mainly (and correctly) concerned with methodological issues - when one can bypass this process and have his/her results published immediately in somewhat respectful and prestigious conferences.