“Computer science is not about computers”

The Wikipedia article for "Computer Science" has relevant information, quote (some line breaks added):

  In the early days of computing, a number of terms for the practitioners of the field of computing were suggested in the Communications of the ACM—turingineer, turologist, flow-charts-man, applied meta-mathematician, and applied epistemologist. Three months later in the same journal, comptologist was suggested, followed next year by hypologist. The term computics has also been suggested.

  In Europe, terms derived from contracted translations of the expression "automatic information" (e.g. "informazione automatica" in Italian) or "information and mathematics" are often used, e.g. informatique (French), Informatik (German), informatica (Italian, Dutch), informática (Spanish, Portuguese), informatika (Slavic languages and Hungarian) or pliroforiki (πληροφορική, which means informatics) in Greek.

  Similar words have also been adopted in the UK (as in the School of Informatics of the University of Edinburgh). "In the U.S., however, informatics is linked with applied computing, or computing in the context of another domain."

For practice; I highly recommend learning Haskell. If you are new to functional programming then learning Haskell is challenging and frustrating but as with any new topic the key is to not give up but keep probing. A good recent development is lot of mainstream languages are beginning to include functional paradigms such as lambda, closures etc., For example Java introduced lambda expressions, Javascript has had them for a while now. But from a first-principles stand point Haskell is as good as it gets so please do learn and code in Haskell if not at work then at least side projects.

For theory I've found following material super useful.

0. This[0] is an incredibly awesome lecture where Phil Wadler takes us on a whirlwind tour of computer science. He talks us through different foundational structures on which almost everything (hardware and software) about computer science is built. I watch this lecture once every few months :-). It helps you build up context and ground various topics.

1. The one and only SICP. Book[1] and lectures[2].

2. Automata theory[3]. This isn't an easy course but gets to the heart of the matter i.e., the meaning of "function" and what how can it be mechanically "computed".

3. Category Theory is where lot of active research is happening in CS theory. This is a very good lecture series[4]. The pace may seem a bit meandering but don't be put off. Bartosz is a gifted teacher and works incredibly hard to disseminate knowledge. For evidence just look at a recent post on HN[5] about an article he published.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeRVdYN6fE8

[1] https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full-text/...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J_xL4IGhJA&list=PLE18841CAB...

[3] http://ce.sharif.edu/courses/94-95/1/ce414-2/resources/root/...

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8LbkfSSR58&list=PLbgaMIhjbm...

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26991300

I accidentally stumbled onto Haskell in my masters course. On the first day at university I attended a trial class of functional programming[1] course and instantly liked the way professor taught. However, I didn't take the course then and forgot all about it. The next semester I took compilers course and approached that professor for my masters thesis. During a meeting he gave me couple of options one of which was in functional programming domain. This time I took the plunge and went all in. Took the FP course and the professor who taught FP became my thesis advisor. The next two years were the most intense and intellectually satisfying years of my life. Not only did I learn Haskell but also built a compiler for it. I still get goosebumps remembering the rollercoaster ride I had in those two years.

During all that, the book by SPJ [2] became my constant companion. The book was actually out of print but my advisor had a book that was signed by SPJ himself :-). And I promptly photocopied it so I have it with me even to this day.

Suffice to say Haskell, lambda calculus along with SPJ and my advisor have had a lasting (and continue to) influence my life.

[1] https://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~as/fpcourse/fpcourse.html

[2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...