computer science

The God Login

algorithms

The God Login

I graduated with a Computer Science minor from the University of Virginia in 1992. The reason it’s a minor and not a major is because to major in CS at UVa you had to go through the Engineering School, and I was absolutely not cut out for that kind

By Jeff Atwood ·
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ergonomics

Bias Lighting

I've talked about computer workstation ergonomics [https://blog.codinghorror.com/computer-workstation-ergonomics/] before, but one topic I didn't address is lighting. We computer geeks like it dark. Really dark. Ideally, we'd be in a cave. A cave … with an internet connection. [http://tuts.pinehead.tv/

By Jeff Atwood ·
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computer science

Your Favorite NP-Complete Cheat

Have you ever heard a software engineer refer to a problem as "NP-complete"? That's fancy computer science jargon shorthand for "incredibly hard": The most notable characteristic of NP-complete problems is that no fast solution to them is known; that is, the time required to

By Jeff Atwood ·
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computer science

Alan Turing, the Father of Computer Science

Charles Petzold was kind enough to send me a copy of his new book, The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470229055/?tag=codihorr-20]. [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470229055/?tag=codihorr-20] One

By Jeff Atwood ·
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programming languages

The Greatest Invention in Computer Science

What do you think the single greatest invention in computer science is? Besides the computer itself, I mean. Seriously, before reading any further, pause here for a moment and consider the question. I've talked before about how young so-called modern computer programming languages really are, and it bears

By Jeff Atwood ·
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programming languages

The Enduring Art of Computer Programming

I saw on reddit that today, January 10th, is Donald Knuth's seventieth birthday. Knuth is arguably the most famous living computer scientist, author of the seminal Art of Computer Programming series. Here's how serious Mr. Knuth is – his books are dedicated, not to his wife or

By Jeff Atwood ·
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computer science

Practicing the Fundamentals: The New Turing Omnibus

While researching Classic Computer Science Puzzles, our CEO Scott Stanfield turned me on to A.K. Dewdney's The New Turing Omnibus: 66 Excursions in Computer Science. This is an incredibly fun little book. Sure, it's got Towers of Hanoi, but it's also got so

By Jeff Atwood ·
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