computer-science

Whats the difference between CS and IT?

Whats the difference between Computer Science Engineering(CSE) and Information Technology(IT)? ...

Simple definition of "semantics" as it is commonly used in relation to programming languages/APIs?

It occurred to me today that although I've adopted and don't infrequently use the term "semantics" when referring to language elements and naming conventions, I don't have any sense of a formal definition. My attempt to find a formal definition in the programming domain made my eyes glaze over. I have a sense of its meaning from the co...

How do I write a function to compare and rank many sets of boolean (true/false) answers?

I've embarked on a project that is proving considerably more complicated than I'd first imagined. I'm trying to plan a system that is based around boolean (true/false) questions and answers. Users on the system can answer any questions from a large set of boolean (true/false) questions and be presented with a list showing the most simila...

Which formal language class are XML and JSON with unique keys (they are not context-free)

JSON and XML are both frequently called to be context-free languages - they are both specified mainly by a formal grammar in EBNF. However this is only true for JSON as defined in RFC 4329, section 2.2 which does not require uniqueness of object keys (many may not know but {"a":1,"a":2} is valid JSON!). But if you require unique keys in ...

What are the main/interesting problems in computational geometry? What are the introductory problems?

Hi, I'm interested in learning about computational geometry, but I'm not sure where to start. What are the interesting problems that are worked on currently? What are the "introductory problems"? Also, possible advise with respect to the field? Thanks! ...

Resources about different Computer Science fields

I am going to begin my final year at university this September so I need to do a project for my dissertation. I had a look at the list with the projects suggested by the uni last year and I don't find any of them THAT interesting. That, combined to my "love" for "theoretical" computer science as a whole got me into thinking that it would...

Is computer science to those who love program? If not, then what should I choose?

I love program. I love solving problems, seek for algorithms and so on. And I love mix it. I program websites with php/mysql/javascript. What I want to do in the future is to write programs. I am not very keen to understand how software works, build robots and something like that but as I mentioned before, I just love programm. So, shoul...

Speaking computer science in mathematicalese

I am in the process of writing a fairly long monograph on a computer science topic. However, I usually find myself in a position of having to write some computer science concept in mathematical terms, and it is difficult to me. For instance, say I want to write a for-loop or a void function. I do most of the time go to my Knuth or Cormen...

Bioinformatics and computer science

How hard is it for a computer science MS student (with a little knowledge in biology) to research problems related to bioinformatics? How much is bioinformatics related to graph algorithms and data structures? ...

Interesting Problems in Computer Science for the Average Brain

Hi everyone, Months ago, I was reading about unsolved problems in Computer Science to this day. I took a look at some of the problems, and clearly it is not enjoying to challenge your self to try some problem for fun unless you understand what the problem is. I would say, I couldn't make head from tail with the knowledge I have reached ...

What is 'weaving'?

I've seen this term when read about how Spring works and I've just read the article about JPA implementation performance and it has the next statistics: EclipseLink 3215 ms (Run-time weaver - Spring ReflectiveLoadTimeWeaver weaver ) EclipseLink (Build-time weaving) ...

Would a course on parallel computing covering these topics be useful for somebody interested in AI, learning, computational geom, and comp vision?

I am interested in learning about topics like AI, machine learning, computer vision, computational geometry, etc. I'm not sure which field I'd like to focus more on yet, but these are topics that are of general interest to me. My school is offering a course tagged as a "parallel and multicore computing" course, and I spoke t...

NFA minimization without determinization

It is well-known how one gets from an NFA for a regular language to a minimal DFA. However, the DFA might have an exponentially larger number of states. What I need is a way to reduce an NFA, giving again an NFA but with a smaller number of states. T.i. I don't need the result to be deterministic, but I'd like it to be as small as possi...

What are cross-checks and how to avoid them?

Hi guys, This is not a practical question like others, but I would like to understand the term cross-check very clearly. thanks in advance. ...

How do software developers, software engineers, and computer scientists all differ?

I am a first year college student who just declared a major in computer science. I've been doing different internships this summer building web and desktop applications using asp.NET, Java-ee...etc. I've heard many titles for this job, mostly web/software developer. How does that differ from a computer scientist?? Is it the algorithms pa...

Getting involved in computer science research

I'd like to know how one goes about getting involved in research in computer science. I have an undergraduate degree in computer science and am currently working in a company. Universities in the US ask for research experience when applying for their graduate programs. How do I get involved in this ? ...

setting parent on AVL tree

I am trying to implement an AVL tree and not sure about the best way to do insert and track each node's parent. This is educational so please do not suggest "use boost" :) This compiles but I am not convinced of its correctness or that it is the best way. Specifically this insert(someNumber,root,root); Also, I will redo the height p...

Implementing Control Structures in Brainf**k

For the uninitiated, Brainfuck is a Turing-complete language with only 8 commands, all of which have literal equivalents in C: bf c ---------------------- > ++ptr; < --ptr; + ++*ptr; - --*ptr; . putchar(*ptr); , *ptr=getchar(); [ while (*ptr) { ] } On any linux distro that has a package manager, you ...

What is the technical definition of theoretical computer science? What subfields are included?

What is the technical definition of theoretical computer science? (Or, what should it be?) What main subfields does it include, and what is the commonality that separates them from the rest of computer science? More specifically: if some particular research has direct practical motivations, goals and outcomes but mostly involves very ...

Explain the proof by Vinay Deolalikar that P != NP.

Recently there has been a paper floating around by Vinay Deolalikar at HP Labs which claims to have proved that P != NP. Could someone explain how this proof works for us less mathematically inclined people? ...