Computer Science is the systematic study of the feasibility, structure, expression, and mechanization of the methodical processes (or algorithms) that underlie the acquisition, representation, processing, storage, communication of, and access to information, whether such information is encoded in bits and bytes in a computer memory or transcribed in genes and protein structures in a human cell.
According to the present view, Computer Science can be situated in a broader context of computing in the following way
The discipline of computing thus encompasses Computer Science, Computer Engineering,
Software Engineering and Information Systems. Here are some definitions.
1. The discipline of Computing is the systematic study of algorithmic3 processes that describe and transform information: their theory, analysis, design, efficiency, implementation, and application.
2. Computer Science is the study of phenomena related to computers, Newell, Perlis and Simon,
1967.
3. Computer Science is the study of information structures, Wegner, 1968, Curriculum 68.
4. Computer Science is the study and management of complexity, Dijkstra, 1969 [8].
5. Computer Science is the mechanization of abstraction, Aho and Ullman 1992 [9, 13].
6. Computer Science is a field of study that is concerned with theoretical and applied disciplines
in the development and use of computers for information storage and processing, mathematics,
logic, science, and many other areas.
Note
The second d
The first and third definitions reflect a mathematical tradition since algorithms and information structures are two abstractions from the phenomena of Computer Science.
The third definition was used by Wegner as the unifying abstraction in his book on Programming
Languages, Information Structures and Machine Organization. This view of Computer Science
has its historical roots in information theory. It strongly influenced the development of Curriculu
68; a document which has been very prominent in the development of undergraduate Computer Science curricula afterwards.
It is implicit in the German and French use of the respective terms "Informatik" and "Informatique" to denote the discipline of Computer Science.
It is interesting to note that the British term "Computer Science" has an empirical orientation,
while the corresponding German and French terms “Informatics” have an abstract orientation.
The view that information is the central idea of Computer Science is both scientifically and sociologically
indicative. Scientifically, it suggests a view of Computer Science as a generalization of
information theory that is concerned not only with the transmission of information but also with
its transformation and interpretation.
The fourth definition reflects the great complexity of engineering problems encountered in managing the construction of complex software-hardware systems.
Logic is important for computing not only because it forms the basis of every programming
language, or because of its investigating into the limits of automatic calculation, but also because of its insight that strings of symbols (also encoded as numbers) can be interpreted both as data and as programs.
by
Nsien U. N.
