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Foundations of Computer Science

i.stanford.edu

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Re: Foundations of Computer Science

#61

Post by cobookman »

Zergy wrote: post #11
cobookman wrote: post #5

We used the book for ECE 3020 - Mathematical foundations of computer Engineering at Gatech. Lecture notes have been taken down, but here are our homework solutions: http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~dblough/3020/solutions/hw_solut...

This is one thing about GaTech that really annoys me. Every professor seems to remove thier notes at the end of every semester and only post them when the content becomes relevent to the course. You cant look ahead and cant reference them afterwards.

100% agree. As a member of SGA I did push for an online notes resource. It turned out to be a legal gray zone though.

Re: Foundations of Computer Science

#63

Post by TeMPOraL »

chengiz wrote: post #59
statik_42 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true. People at my school don't always realize that computer science isn't just about programming, it's truly a subset of mathematics.

Ok I'll bite. Why is "creating the right model for thinking about a problem and devising the appropriate mechanizable techniques to solve it" a subset of mathematics ?

Because the mathematics is basically distilled, formalized art of precise thinking. It's the art of manipulating and morphing mental models. It's as much about numbers as astronomy is about telescopes ;).

Re: Foundations of Computer Science

#64

Post by alexchamberlain »

mtdewcmu wrote: post #60
statik_42 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true. People at my school don't always realize that computer science isn't just about programming, it's truly a subset of mathematics.

Computer science is a big tent. It's an amalgamation of a lot of different things. If you ask "Is computer science X?" the answer is usually yes.

Is computer science the study of political figures of the past? No... but it is the study of validating X.

Re: Foundations of Computer Science

#65

Post by alexchamberlain »

chengiz wrote: post #59
statik_42 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true. People at my school don't always realize that computer science isn't just about programming, it's truly a subset of mathematics.

Ok I'll bite. Why is "creating the right model for thinking about a problem and devising the appropriate mechanizable techniques to solve it" a subset of mathematics ?

That's what a Maths degree is all about! I guess Maths emphasises the model and CS emphasises the mechanisation.

Re: Foundations of Computer Science

#66

Post by mcguire »

jryan49 wrote: post #6

Also used this book during university. We all had to print it out on a printer.

And I just discovered that I'm still a university computer science department system administrator: Every fiber of my being screamed, "Dear god, no! Use the Copy Center!"

Re: Foundations of Computer Science

#67

Post by RockyMcNuts »

chengiz wrote: post #59
statik_42 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true. People at my school don't always realize that computer science isn't just about programming, it's truly a subset of mathematics.

Ok I'll bite. Why is "creating the right model for thinking about a problem and devising the appropriate mechanizable techniques to solve it" a subset of mathematics ?

Computer science is the study of algorithms, information systems and anything that is computable.

Mathematics is the study of formal systems, eg proofs that can be derived from axioms using algorithms, i.e. a specific type of computable system.

Therefore, mathematics is a subset of computer science.

Re: Foundations of Computer Science

#68

Post by wolfhumble »

jontas wrote: post #52

I downloaded and merged the individual PDFs into one file, you can grab it here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6428759/merged.pdf Edit: I did this using commands mentioned in some other comments and some Googling (this only works on OSX): curl -O http://i.stanford.edu/~ullman/focs/ch[01-14].pdf && /System/Library/Automator/Combine\ PDF\ Pages.action/Contents/Resources/join.py -o ./merged.pdf ./*.pdf

Cool one-liner!

Might want to switch the last part of the command, though, as all other pdf files in that folder get merged in as well (learned the hard way) :-)

Something like this would probably be safer:

curl -O http://i.stanford.edu/~ullman/focs/ch[01-14].pdf && /System/Library/Automator/Combine\ PDF\ Pages.action/Contents/Resources/join.py -o ./merged.pdf ./ch[0-1][0-9].pdf

Re: Foundations of Computer Science

#69

Post by seanmcdirmid »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #63
chengiz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok I'll bite. Why is "creating the right model for thinking about a problem and devising the appropriate mechanizable techniques to solve it" a subset of mathematics ?

Because the mathematics is basically distilled, formalized art of precise thinking. It's the art of manipulating and morphing mental models. It's as much about numbers as astronomy is about telescopes ;).

Forming a model might not involve precise thinking, it often involves lateral thinking, at least with me.

I heard that computer science was more of a subset of music than math.

Re: Foundations of Computer Science

#70

Post by justin66 »

FraaJad wrote: post #56

Many people have posted the combined PDF on this thread. However, there is no way to economically print this PDF for self use. Lulu puts the limit at 740 pages and this book weighs in at 790+ pages. Does anyone know of a cheap online printer that can print at around 2cents/page?

With that budget you can get there with duplex b&w laser printing onto standard copier paper. I guess you'd have to buy a binder, but still cheaper than lulu I would think.
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