Re:Teach Yourself Computer Science
by jodrellblank on Sunday June 21, 2020 @02:37AM
(#23590323)
> The problem was a lot of it wasn’t job relevant and it felt very rigid, and sometimes even more complex than it needed to be.
CS was born out of a time when computers were very limited. How do you write a word processor with a spell checker, when the dictionary alone won't fit on a floppy disk, or fit in memory?[1] How do you draw rounded rectangles on your GUI when they take too many CPU cycles to draw?[2]
CS people managed to carve out paths through problem spaces that could be done on the computers of the day. These days, you put everything you need into a hashtable and it looks up in microseconds and you don't have to care anymore.
CS was born out of a time when computers were very limited. How do you write a word processor with a spell checker, when the dictionary alone won't fit on a floppy disk, or fit in memory?[1] How do you draw rounded rectangles on your GUI when they take too many CPU cycles to draw?[2]
CS people managed to carve out paths through problem spaces that could be done on the computers of the day. These days, you put everything you need into a hashtable and it looks up in microseconds and you don't have to care anymore.
[1] https://prog21.dadgum.com/29.html
[2] https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_...