Module 1: Course Overview

1
Module 1 Course Overview

• Course CSE 460
• Instructor Dr. Eric Torng
• TA To be determined

2
What is this course?

• Philosophy of computing course
• We take a step back to think about computing in
  broader terms
• Science of computing course
• We study fundamental ideas/results that shape the
  field of computer science
• Applied computing course
• We learn study a broad range of material with
  relevance to computing today

3
Philosophy

• Phil. of life
• What is the purpose of life?
• What are we capable of accomplishing in life?
• Are there limits to what we can do in life?
• Why do we drive on parkways and park on
  driveways?

• Phil. of computing
• What is the purpose of programming?
• What can we achieve through programming?
• Are there limits to what we can do with programs?
• Why dont debuggers actually debug programs?

4
Science

• Physics
• Study of fundamental physical laws and phenomenon
  like gravity and electricity
• Engineering
• Governed by physical laws

• Our material
• Study of fundamental computational laws and
  phenomenon like undecidability and universal
  computers
• Programming
• Governed by computational laws

5
Applied computing

• Applications are not immediately obvious
• In some cases, seeing the applicability of this
  material requires advanced abstraction skills
• Every year, there are people who leave this
  course unable to see the applicability of the
  material
• Others require more material in order to
  completely understand their application
• for example, to understand how regular
  expressions and context-free grammars are applied
  to the design of compilers, you need to take a
  compilers course

6
Some applications

• Important programming languages
• regular expressions (perl)
• finite state automata (used in hardware design)
• context-free grammars
• Proofs of program correctness
• Subroutines
• Using them to prove problems are unsolvable
• String searching/Pattern matching
• Algorithm design concepts such as recursion

7
Fundamental Theme

• What are the capabilities and limitations of
  computers and computer programs?
• What can we do with computers/programs?
• Are there things we cannot do with
  computers/programs?

8
Studying the Theme

• How do we prove something CAN be done by SOME
  program?
• How do we prove something CANNOT be done by ANY
  program?
• How would Scott Adams answer this question?