A Random Walk Through Computer Science
Owen Astrachan
The of field Computer Science is more than 50 years old. I've
been teaching programming since 1980, but will use 1984 as a benchmark.
The machines we used in 1984 measured memory in kilobytes
and processor speed in megahertz, today we measure memory in megabytes and
speed in gigahertz. Things have improved more than a thousand-fold. Is this
true of teaching as well as technology?
What are the differences between java.util.Random,
java.security.SecureRandom, and the random numbers available from random.org?
How does this this question relate to the previous question?
In this talk I'll offer examples of teaching programming
that leverage randomness and the power of our machines. At the same time I hope
we'll all talk about what we should really teach everyone about informatics and
programming in the age of the web, the Internet, certified slot machines,
uncertified voting machines, and patented code.