Talking With Computers
Explores a wide range of fundamental topics in computer science, from
digital logic and machine language to artificial intelligence and the
World Wide Web, explaining how computers and computer programs work
and how the various subfields of computer science are
interconnected. Dean touches on a number of questions including: How
can a computer learn to recognize junk email? What happens when you
click on a link in a browser? How can you program a robot to do two
things at once? Are there limits to what computers can do? Readers
are encouraged to experiment with short programs and fragments of code
written in several languages to strip away the mystery and reveal the
underlying computational
ideas. The full
text is now available on the web as are
extensive supplementary
materials including code from the book, tips on finding and
installing software, links to online resources, exercises and an
instruction
manual for students and teachers.
The text is published by Cambridge
University Press.