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How does one learn about the latest advances in Computer Science (not fads) to apply and improve your work?

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Re: How does one learn about the latest advances in Computer Science (not fads) to apply and improve your work?

#21
IEEE Magazines:

http://www.ieee.org/web/publications/journmag/index.html

"Software" and "Computer" are more in-depth and oriented towards latest advancements and practices. "Internet Computing" and "IT Professional" are more practical.

Re: How does one learn about the latest advances in Computer Science (not fads) to apply and improve your work?

#24
post #22

Go to CS talks at nearby universities. Most have talks that are open to the public. These usually include "job talks" in which people applying for teaching jobs present their recent work.

Also see:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=google+techtalks

Re: How does one learn about the latest advances in Computer Science (not fads) to apply and improve your work?

#25
post #11
post #7

How can you tell the differnce between a fad and an advancement?

Fads usually come with a fair bit of unsubstantiated hype (like RoR and Ajax) whereas algorithms (and such) are not usually hyped at all in the media (sometimes due to copyrights on their publications [journals] and sometimes due to academic obscurity, abstraction, or even complexity).

That's an interesting take. I'd argue that Ajax for example is an advancement, regardless of the hype -- because it increases usability of many real-world web applications, today.

On the other hand, most algorithms are not widely applicable, so might only be counted as an advancement when they're used 30 years from now in a single specialized case.

-Matt (of donna & Matt)

Re: How does one learn about the latest advances in Computer Science (not fads) to apply and improve your work?

#26
post #2

Computer Science, as a field is very mature, and as a result, very specialized in its research (though I disagree with the idea that core algorithm research is more relevant for the average developer than what you call fads). The best thing to do is to first get more specific: what kind of algorithm? Is it database implementations? Virtualization techniques? Filesystem optimization? Graphics hardware? Programming lan…

> Computer Science, as a field is very mature,

CS is less than 100 years old. How do you see it as "mature"?

Re: How does one learn about the latest advances in Computer Science (not fads) to apply and improve your work?

#27
post #2

Computer Science, as a field is very mature, and as a result, very specialized in its research (though I disagree with the idea that core algorithm research is more relevant for the average developer than what you call fads). The best thing to do is to first get more specific: what kind of algorithm? Is it database implementations? Virtualization techniques? Filesystem optimization? Graphics hardware? Programming lan…

> Computer Science, as a field is very mature, CS is less than 100 years old. How do you see it as "mature"?

Mature in that there are many sub-disciplines and an extremely large academic community that studies and researches very specific aspects.

Re: How does one learn about the latest advances in Computer Science (not fads) to apply and improve your work?

#28
post #25
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fads usually come with a fair bit of unsubstantiated hype (like RoR and Ajax) whereas algorithms (and such) are not usually hyped at all in the media (sometimes due to copyrights on their publications [journals] and sometimes due to academic obscurity, abstraction, or even complexity).

That's an interesting take. I'd argue that Ajax for example is an advancement, regardless of the hype -- because it increases usability of many real-world web applications, today. On the other hand, most algorithms are not widely applicable, so might only be counted as an advancement when they're used 30 years from now in a single specialized case. -Matt (of donna & Matt)

I'd count them as an advancement as soon as they are added to the body of knowledge. XMLHttpRequest has been around for nearly a decade. A decade ago the "advancement" was there. It took almost 10 years for the fad to build up. If someone wants to know the fads (AJAX) just read prog.reddit.com and you're all set. If you want to know REAL C.S. advancements you'll have to dig a bit deeper into the literature.

Re: How does one learn about the latest advances in Computer Science (not fads) to apply and improve your work?

#29
post #28
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting take. I'd argue that Ajax for example is an advancement, regardless of the hype -- because it increases usability of many real-world web applications, today. On the other hand, most algorithms are not widely applicable, so might only be counted as an advancement when they're used 30 years from now in a single specialized case. -Matt (of donna & Matt)

I'd count them as an advancement as soon as they are added to the body of knowledge. XMLHttpRequest has been around for nearly a decade. A decade ago the "advancement" was there. It took almost 10 years for the fad to build up. If someone wants to know the fads (AJAX) just read prog.reddit.com and you're all set. If you want to know REAL C.S. advancements you'll have to dig a bit deeper into the literature.

Maybe an analogy is due. In the car world there are all kinds of people who strap on after market accessories to make their cars faster. These people are in the "fad" part, where as the underlying "advancement" may be decades old.

Re: How does one learn about the latest advances in Computer Science (not fads) to apply and improve your work?

#30

I'm going to say something heretical here: I don't think entrepreneurs should base their companies off the latest advances in computer science. Problem is, many of them are really "bleeding edge", and even the researchers themselves don't know all the implications for them. Nobody has a clue where they might lead, or if anyone will ever find them useful. Instead, you should look for the stuff that came out of academi…

To learn about new, often relevant developments, I would do searches for stuff you're tracking on Citeseer. There is also a research paper search engine called Citeulike, which is sort of a social tracking engine for research papers.

You can generally absorb whatever is presented in academic conferences in a fraction of the time by regularly scanning research papers. It has the side bonus of keeping you periphially aware of folks doing interesting research in your field (who you often end up running into, sooner or later).

http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/ http://www.citeulike.org/

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