About Me

What is Computer Science?

Computational thinking builds on the power and limits of computing processes, whether they are executed by a human or by a machine. -- Jeanette M. Wing (2006). "Computational thinking". Communications of the ACM 49 (3):33.

Or Less Abstractly

• The ACM is a global computer science society.
• Let's take the ACM's 1968 curriculum and the 2013 curriculum.
• Take the intersection to find the commonality.
• Then project into the future.

1968

• Apollo 7 carried a crew into space, Apollo 11 didn't fly 'till the following year.
• 2001: A Space Odyssey was released.
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick was published.
• The Apollo guidance computer had a memory of 2048 16bit words and a clock speed of 2Mhz.
• "Agc view" by Grabert at German Wikipedia. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

2013

• Soyuz only delivers crew to the ISS.
• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami was published.
• Intel CPUs run multiple cores at 3Ghz, connected to 8Gb of RAM (that's 512 16-bit words * 1024 * 1024 * 8).

If the technology is this different how can Computer Science be the same?

What is Computer Science?

Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra

Computer Science 1968

Computer Science 2013

What's Common?

• Data Structures & Algorithms.
• Networking -- though the nature of the network has changed.
• Programming -- and lots of it.
• Statistics & Discrete Maths.
• Computer Graphics
• Computer Organisation

What has been Added?

• Operating Systems.
• Social Issues & Professional Practice.
• Networked Applications.
• Human Computer Interaction
• (Frankly, a lot more).

Future Projections

• Parallelism, Concurrency & Distributed.
• Functional (Haskell-like).
• More Statistics (Big Data, Machine Learning).
• eScience.

Computer Science @ Brighton

• Oldest Computer Science degree in UK.
• Degrees in
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science (Games)
  • Software Engineering
  • Digital Media

Research @ Brighton

• Visual Languages and Visual Reasoning
• Big Data
• Computational Linguistics
• User Interaction

Tips for Computer Scientists

Everything is Semantic

• Structured is king.
• Design for consumption.

Read Widely

• ACM Crossroads
• GoF, ADM, FOCS
• The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein. Ulysees, James Joyce.

Convergence of Data, Design and Code

Thank you