I'm a PhD student in mechanical engineering without an extensive background in computer science. We write code as part of our research, but it's usually high-level (e.g., Matlab) and often rather ad-hoc. It sounds like code reviews amongst the academics here would be valuable for (a) learning techniques from other people, and (b) spott...
Which language should students, who are looking to become professional programmers, start with? Should they start with a purely functional, procedural, object oriented or with a purely algorithmic approach? I recently found out that many schools have dropped C++ for Java and VB as an initiation language. Since these languages live ...
To cut a long story short, I am a CS student that has received no formal Post-16 Maths education for years. Right now even my Algebra is extremely rusty and I have a couple of months to shape up my skills. I've got a couple of video lectures in my bookmarks, consisting of: Pre-Calculus Algebra Calculus Probability Introduction to Stati...
I was playing around with Zotero yesterday to help my partner with an assignment and it gave me a craving for going back to academia. I'm a CS Grad with a Masters (In CS as well) so I'd be going back to do a Phd. How much time is too muchtime before going back to academia? I'd planned on working for at least 5 years before considdering ...
When I was last at university the language de-jour for projects was Java. I was wondering if this is still the case. Last I checked my university had switched to teaching Python as its first language and from what I can see python seems to be gaining popularity among the "We need to make something quickly" crowd. Haskell was also the m...
I am currently studying as a student of physics, chemistry, math and computer science. I am very passionate about computer science especially programming. The unfortunate thing is that the others are taking a blow because of me dedicating a lot of time to computer science and the others are necessary for my final score and selection into...
As a student I worry constantly about the outside world. I've worked for some companies already providing Web Design/Development and SEO help, even the occasional DB work, but I still worry about how I'll cope in the real world as a developer or a graduate student (hopefully) at a top university. Aside from the obvious answer being Work...
If you had the opportunity to teach new students how to program for a year, what would you teach? I've always found that a multi-paradigm approach to teaching programming works best, but is it too much for first-year students? Is it better for a student to be great at one or good at 3-5? At the moment I am looking to help tutor students...
I tend to have a stereotype of Haskell as the most "advanced" (high-level, sophisticated, powerful, abstract) language. One which has lots of weird features that, if I could grasp them, would make me a super-hero programmer. But what comes after Haskell? What languages and new kinds of abstraction are being invented now in academia whic...
As someone that will be applying for jobs in the near (immediate) future, I'd like to get some perspective on the differences between academia and the software industry. As I've never taken an internship all I've known are school and personal projects. What is the biggest difference between college and the "real" world? What surprised y...
I'm interested on following the formal research on universities and academia, related to software development, and I wonder if anyone knows some centralized rss feed (blogs maybe) , mailing list, newsgroup or anything that keeps updating on the subject. I want to keep up to date on the field and discover sources, so if you have only one...
I'm currently in my second year of a Computer Science degree and all is going well. I finished the first year with flying colours, even whilst spending a couple of months out for physiotherapy on a previous injury, and now the second year's content seems relatively straightforward. If I can keep up this rate of achievement then I'm sure ...
Is Software Testing really given its importance at the academic level? I believe there is a need in universities offering Software Engineering (and probably even Computer Science) to treat Software Testing as a separate course and topic in itself, rather than as part of a general topic of Software Engineering. Irrespective of the testin...
I've already read through a number of related questions about whether a Masters degree increases a developers ability and awareness, but one of the things I've struggled to understand is just how a Masters degree would help me. I'll be graduating in 2010 and with luck will have landed a place on a Masters degree course at a decent unive...
Hi, I'm going back to Uni to do an MSc and for one of my target courses I need to know first order logic, inlcuding semantic tableaux and resolution inside out. I don't have an academic background in the subject, so what's a good book, or online course, or online resource to learn this subject? I need clear explanations with lots of que...
At my local university they offer two career paths for their Computer Science degree. One track is Information Systems and the other is Math & Science. If you take the Math & Science track you have the option of taking an extra 5 math classes and you receive a B.S. in Mathematics as well as your B.S. in CS. My question is which would be...
I sign up Spring courses tomorrow morning (transferring in to the Computer Science program). Since I'm a transfer student, I get the last pick of leftover classes not already taken. Emphasis on 'last pick' and 'leftover'. It's highly probable that whatever classes I intend on picking tomorrow, I might not even get because other students ...
Which are the "best?" Specifically those that would allow one to become a part of a greater community. Moderators: please note that academic journals and more common variety periodicals are not the same thing. As far as I can tell there is no discussion of academic journals so far on Stack Overflow. ~ William Riley-Land ...
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? ...
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. ...