20 years I was taught languages (Pascal, Basic, LISP), data structures and algorithms, and math classes. I would like to know what is being taught in the last 10 years? Are there courses on process and life cycle? Are there Microsoft .Net and Java specific courses? Are there business application development and enterprise computing ...
Update: Please read this question in the context of design principles, elegance, expression of intent, and especially the "signals" sent to other programmers by design choices. I have two "views" of a set of objects. One is a dictionary/map indexing the objects by a string value. The other is a dictionary/map indexing the objects by an ...
I've read a few instances in reading mathematics and computer science that use the equivalence symbol ≡, (basically an '=' with three lines) and it always makes sense to me to read this as if it were equality. What is the difference between these two concepts? ...
Does anyone know a of a distribution of programming language usage over scientific domains? Thanks! ...
I'm a non CS graduate and have often heard that CS grads do great programming with languages like C#. I guess they understand the low level details (closer to the metal) so they probably code better. I come from business application background and I may not require the knowledge a CS education gives you but still it won't hurt to learn ...
Oppenheimer and the bomb are often invoked to illustrate the limits of what science and technology should do (rather than what it can do). Are there a computer science or programming problems that deserve a similar level of moral reflection before they are solved? ...
I've been trying to learn about Neural Networks for a while now, and I can understand some basic tutorials online, and I've been able to get through portions of Neural Computing - An Introduction but even there, I'm glazing over a lot of the math, and it becomes completely over my head after the first few chapters. Even then its the lea...
Are there graduate schools that are offering degrees in computer science where at least part of the course work can be completed online? I am tethered to my geographic locale. I already have a master's degree in CS so I would be going for my PhD this time. ...
What was the single thing you learned (either in classes or during work) that felt most like scales falling off your eyes? For me, it was a lecture about microcode, because that filled the gap of understanding between electrons flowing through transistors to form logic gates, and assembler programming. It finally made me feel that I und...
A famous computer scientist, Edsger Dijkstra, once remarked, "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." I am inclined to agree. However, this brings up an interesting question: what would a better name for the field be? ...
I have to solve the following problem in an optimal way. Input data is: N points in a plane given as a (x, y) pair of integer coordinates M points in the same plane given as a (x, y) pair of integer coordinates representing the center of a circle. All this circles have (0, 0) on their edge. I need to find a way of isolating a number...
This article in the NZ Herald got me thinking. It's entitled "IT grads halved over past 4 years". Some of the points mentioned: stereotype of the IT nerd following the dot-com crash there was a perception that IT was not a solid career choice Is this just a NZ thing? Given the shortage, the decent salaries and the fact that these...
I am a software developer. These days, I work for a social networking site and write in Ruby, Php, C, C++, and of course, use SQL. I have a B.Sc. in Computing Science. I love my job. In my free time, I set up MythTV boxes, install open-source firmware on my WRT-54GL wireless router, and generally geek out. My girlfriend wants to und...
I have a degree in Computer Information Systems (learned high-level programming, database/network stuff, minimal math, minimal science, with lots of business application focus). Now I'm sitting in a job where I realize that a background in Electrical Engineering/Computer Engineering would have been amazingly useful in order to support pr...
I read an article recently by Joel Spolsky entitled "The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!)". I knew nothing about Unicode before I read the article. Now, I feel like I can speak intelligently about the topic and, if I ever needed to dig deeper, I ha...
Ok this is more of a computer science question, than a question based on a particular language, but is there a difference between a map operation and a foreach operation? Or are they simply different names for the same thing? ...
What are your favorite programming-related / cs academic published papers? It could be a functional pearl, a programming-language paper like those often cited on lambda-the-ultimate.org, etc. Really, anything vaguely related to programming. Please also explain why you like the paper. ...
I'm a totally blind individual who would like to learn more of the theory aspect of computer science. I've had an intro data structures class and the general intro programming but would like to learn more on things such as software design, advanced data structures, and compiler design. I want to do this as a self study course not as part...
Having been a hobbyist programmer for 3 years (mainly Python and C) and never having written an application longer than 500 lines of code, I find myself faced with two choices : (1) Learn the essentials of data structures and algorithm design so I can become a l33t computer scientist. (2) Learn Qt, which would help me build projects I ...
I've seen the term "lexical variable" a few times, mostly in the context of closures. Paul Graham uses the term in his books on Lisp referring to variables defined using the let expression. I understand that lexical scoping is another name for static scoping. Is lexical variable just a variable that is visible in a program unit's refer...