Bernard - Strangely enough, the following book is a perfect introduction to computers as well as the underlying logic sets that forms the basis to computer science: Aspray, W., Ed. (1990). 1st edition. Computing before computers. Ames, IA, Iowa State University Press. There may be a second edition. As to how today's computers actually work, the old staple by Weizenbaum pretty much says it all (apologies I haven't read the whole thread someone has surely mentioned this already): Weizenbaum, J. (1976). Computer power and human reason: From judgment to calculation. San Francisco, CA, W.H. Freeman. A personal favorite, not quite so old and comprehensive on the different types of computer programming: Shasha, D. and C. Lazere (1998). Out of their minds: The lives and discoveries of 15 great computer scientists. New York, Copernicus, Springer-Verlag. Cheers, Denise Denise N. Rall, PhD. Special Projects, Faculty of Arts & Science Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW AUSTRALIA Mobile +(61)(0)438 233344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/ Popular Culture Association of Australia & New Zealand POPCAANZ Conf. Auckland, New Zealand July 2011 --- On Tue, 28/9/10, Bernhard Rieder <lists@procspace.net> wrote:
From: Bernhard Rieder <lists@procspace.net> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Non-Code-Centric Texts in Introductions To Computer Science? To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Received: Tuesday, 28 September, 2010, 1:18 AM Hi Peter,
I think that there are actually quite a lot of books out there that may capture the interest of CS people without being centered on code or engineering practices. I'd suggest the following classics:
"Winograd & Flores: Understanding Computers and Cogition" "Agre: Computation and Human Experience" "Brown & Duguid: The Social Life of Information"
A good place to lookfor more may be: http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/bds/
I also think that the historical approach to computing has the potential to provide a wider perspective to your students.
"Edwards: The Closed World" is quite fascinating and "Campbell-Kelly & Aspray: Computer. A History of the Information Machine" is still the best general history of computing I've read.
cheers and good luck for tickling that inner humanist in your codesquad... B.
-- Bernhard Rieder Laboratoire Paragraphe Université de Paris VIII
bernhard.rieder@univ-paris8.fr http://bernhard.rieder.fr http://thepoliticsofsystems.net
On 9/27/10 6:18 , Pete[r] Landwehr wrote:
Hey list,
I have an open ended question for this list that is intended to be a bit selfish and (hopefully) a bit beneficial for everyone else. Recently, I read Weizenbaum's Computing Power And Human Reason, in which he makes arguments about the things that AI should& shouldn't address. (It's a bit dated.) In it, he makes a point that because he is trained as a computer scientist he considers himself a poorly educated entrant to the debate,& later suggests that an introduction to computer science should be more than an introduction to programming, but also into some of the theory behind the field. (By "theory", I mean the conceptual ideas behind computing, not discrete mathematics.) As a computer scientist whose introduction to computer science was essentially an introduction to programming along with some key algorithms in the field and a few good software engineering practices, I found his argument appealing.
As such, I'd like to ask the list -both computer scientists and non- what (if any) texts would you like undergraduate computer scientists to be exposed to that are _not_ solely focused on good practices in C++/Java/<Language of Choice> programming? Baudrillard's Simulacra And Simulations? Lessig's Code v. 2? Simon's The Sciences Of The Artificial? Some linguistics text by Chomsky? Or is this whole idea dumb& everything is totally hunky-dory?
Best,
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