1. Why Computer Science is a Great Choice International Summer School, 2015 2. Ian Gent Ian Gent Professor School of Computer Science http://ian.gent 3. International Summer School, 2015 Why Computer Science is a Great Choice 4. St Andrews isnt that old 5. Compared to Bologna for example 6. Wait a minute, how did I know that? 7. Wikipedia, of course! 8. That was easy 9. Or was it . ? 10. Computer Science is all about Layers 11. Video by James Montgomery St Andrews CS Student 2013- Won 3000 in National Contest! 12. How easy was it? To find out which is the oldest (western-style) university in the world Very easy Call up a web search Go to the Wikipedia link Read the webpage Copy the image Insert it into the talk 13. How easy was it? To find out which is the oldest (western-style) university in the world Very easy Call up a web search Go to the Wikipedia link Read the webpage Download the image Insert it into the talk 14. Call up a web search You know what web page I used, right. You know, that one everybody uses You know, the one which often has a doodle You know 15. 173.194.40.82 The above is the ip address You might find it easier to call it Google Numerical address for the computer that did the search But how did I get there from google.com Using Domain Name System (DNS) Translation from names to numbers Constantly updated 16. Domain Name System DNS didnt have to happen Created by lots of hard work by great computer scientists Jon Postel Paul Mockapetris 17. Call up a web search 18. Wait . What ???? 19. Wait . What ???? 20. How do you search the entire web in half a second?? With a LOT of careful preparation Start off by visiting all web pages in the world Yes all web pages As often as you possibly can And storing them all And that is the easy bit! Then figure out how to get them to users who want them On the first page of 10 hits out of 50 million This is called Information Retrieval 21. Information retrieval Find documents from words they contain University And from combinations of words Oldest university And maybe combinations never given to your search engine before And with companies trying to make sure they get their results first Even if its not the results the users want And in half a second 22. Information Retrieval Information Retrieval didnt have to happen Created by lots of hard work by great computer scientists Karen Sprck Jones Larry Page Sergey Brin 23. How easy was it? To find out which is the oldest (western-style) university in the world Very easy Call up a web search Go to the Wikipedia link Read the webpage Download the image Insert it into the talk 24. Go to the Wikipedia link Wikipedia. Who would have thought that you could get the world to provide a massive encyclopedia for free? Crowdsourcing is mainly a feature of the internet age Which came first, the Wiki or the Pedia? And you need the software to make the web pages Wiki software, which Wikipedia was named for Not the other way round 25. Wikipedia Wikipedia didnt have to happen Created by lots of hard work by great computer scientists (and financiers) Ward Cunningham Jimmy Wales 26. Go to the Wikipedia link A link connects two pieces of text A type of HyperText Directed via a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) Transferred by HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) Over the internet Remind me to tell you the time I printed out a million digits of pi for my mother Which I found on gopher 27. Hypertext, URL, HTTP Hypertext didnt have to happen Created by lots of hard work by great computer scientists Vannevar Bush Ted Nelson Tim Berners-Lee 28. How easy was it? To find out which is the oldest (western-style) university in the world Very easy Call up a web search Go to the Wikipedia link Read the webpage Download the image Insert it into the talk 29. Read the webpage Uses language called HTML HyperText Markup Language Text but also instructions like links, emphasis etc Based on SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) Originated in 1969, way before Web! We need a web browser to do this First major browsers were Mosaic & Netscape Let me tell you how good Netscape was 30. SGML, Browsers SGML & Browsers didnt have to happen Created by lots of hard work by great computer scientists Charles Goldfarb Marc Andreessen 31. How easy was it? To find out which is the oldest (western-style) university in the world Very easy Call up a web search Go to the Wikipedia link Read the webpage Download the image Insert it into the talk 32. Download the image We are need to get it over the internet There are a lot of wires between here & there And a lot of other computers And everything might be routed a different way And some packets might be lost Using the Internet Protocol IP Stack often pictured with 7 layers Yes just one bit of one aspect of this has 7 layers 33. The Internet Internet Protocols didnt have to happen Created by lots of hard work by great computer scientists Vint Cert talking to me (!!!) Bob Kahn 34. Download the image A lot of digital imaging is about compression I.e. compress a large file to make it smaller Thats why most images you see online are jpeg or gif/png. jpeg uses lossy compression Lossy compression isnt just maths, but critically uses understanding of human perception gif/png uses lossless compression Actually the Bologna image is non of the above 35. Raster or Vector? Bologna image is svg (Scalable Vector Graphics) Raster is the pixel based image Rectangular grid of dots, each one a particular colour and brightness Vector images build up image from library of shapes Better for designed images like logos Not good for photos with arbitrary information 36. Digital Images Digital Images didnt have to happen Created by lots of hard work by great computer scientists Chris Lilley Abraham Lempel 37. How easy was it? To find out which is the oldest (western-style) university in the world Very easy Call up a web search Go to the Wikipedia link Read the webpage Download the image Insert it into the talk 38. Insert it into the talk Copy and paste, drag and drop Metaphors from people working on a desk Hence the name desktop GUI (graphical user interface) Key concepts like WYSIWIG (what you see is what you get) So standard I have to explain what it used to be! 39. The way it used to be Terminal with keyboard Do you see a mouse (or trackpad)? Multi users per computer This cost 000s And wasnt a full computer! And couldnt display graphics So you couldnt see document in final form VT100 terminal 40. GUI GUI didnt have to happen Created by lots of hard work by great computer scientists Alan KayDoug Engelbart 41. I hope you see the point Theres a LOT of layers involved in finding out which University is first, and grabbing its image and putting it in a presentation 42. I hope you see the point Theres a LOT of layers involved in finding out which University is first, and grabbing its image and putting it in a presentation Of course I have given you an incredibly simplified version of the story! 43. Programming I havent talked about programming Which maybe you thought Computer Science is all about Its true that all these advances depended critically on programming But Computer Science is not just about learning programming languages Spanish degree is not just about learning Spanish English degree not just about learning English. 44. Programming Languages Another layer of abstraction between the computer silicon and the programmer We dont just have to write in 0s and 1s Each language has different goals Things it makes easier for the programmer Each language has disadvantages Things it is not so good at Examples are Fortran, C, Cobol, Lisp, C++, Haskell, Idris But there are one or two others as well 45. Programming Languages Programming Languages didnt have to happen Created by lots of hard work by great computer scientists Grace Hopper (Admiral!)Ada Lovelace 46. Please tell me you get the point Theres a LOT of layers involved in finding out which University is first, and grabbing its image and putting it in a presentation Of course I have given you an incredibly simplified version of the story! 47. Or I will have to talk about more layers! Theres a LOT of layers involved in finding out which University is first, and grabbing its image and putting it in a presentation Of course I have given you an incredibly simplified version of the story! 48. Computer Science in Action Most of the pictures you saw were old white men Though they were much younger when they did their key research Gender inequality a major problem for CS Perhaps the major problem for CS At St Andrews we try to do things about this In part by doing Computer Science! 49. The Petrie Multiplier 50. Karen Petrie Senior Lecturer in Computing at Dundee Computing graduate of St Andrews And inventor of the Petrie Multiplier (but not the namer of it!) Images: Ian Gent Petrie? 51. The Petrie Multiplier A thought experiment Lets assume no gender difference in sexism Say 20% of people act like jerks to the opposite sex And 20% of CS people are women We will see amazing difference in result http://blog.ian.gent/2013/10/the-petrie-multiplier-why- attack-on.html 52. Lets start with 32 men. 53. Lets start with 32 men. 54. Lets start with 32 men. In pink of course 55. Lets start with 32 men. In pink of course The boys colour 56. The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl. -- Earnshaw's Infants' Department 1918 57. The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. Something to remember next time you catch yourself thinking some gender difference is inherent 58. Lets add 8 women. 59. Lets add 8 women. In blue 60. Now add 8 more men who act like jerks to women 61. Now add 8 more men who act like jerks to women 62. And 2 more women who act like jerks to men 63. And 2 more women who act like jerks to men 64. Remember! Each gender is equally jerky to the other 65. Lets see what happens. 66. Some man acted like a jerk to some woman. Not good. 67. Some woman acted like a jerk to some man. Also not good. 68. Unluckiest man of 40 does better than luckiest woman of 10! 69. 0.35 bad experiences per man 5.6 bad experiences per woman 16x as many Ratio of bad experiences is square of gender ratio 80% men : 20% women = 4 : 1 70. Petrie Multiplier: Lessons With women underrepresented Women experience amazing disparity of sexism With no assumption that men are worse So attacks on sexism in CS... ... and statements that women get it worse than men are not attacks on men 71. CS at St Andrews is a Great Choice Computer Science is great St Andrews is great The University is great Computer Science at St Andrews University is great The dogfood is great 72. The dogfood is great ???? Eating your own dog food, also called dogfooding, is a slang term used to reference a scenario in which a company (usually, a computer software company) uses its own product to demonstrate the quality and capabilities of the product. Wikipedia Not just capabilities but . If e.g. you are selling a word processor You should be using your own word processor! 73. Dogfood Graham Kirby BSc St Andrews PhD St Andrews 74. Dogfood Al Dearle BSc St Andrews PhD St Andrews 75. Dogfood Ian Miguel BSc St Andrews 76. Dogfood Ishbel Duncan BSc St Andrews 77. Dogfood Alex Bain BSc St Andrews 78. Dogfood Stuart Norcross BSc St Andrews PhD St Andrews 79. Dogfood Jonathan Lewis PhD St Andrews 80. Dogfood Tom Kelsey PhD St Andrews 81. Dogfood Dharini Balasubramaniam PhD St Andrews 82. Dogfood Ruth Letham PhD St Andrews 83. St Andrews is Great Even if you dont like golf Beautiful seaside location Most of Scotland fairly easy to access Golf + University means better shops and entertainment than town this size should have And can be ridiculously photogenic 84. St Andrews is Great My hot water bottle story Many people come here and never leave People who dont like St Andrews usually are ones who love big city life And we just cant provide that 85. St Andrews University is great Founded 1413 Culmination of 600th Anniversary in 2013 Honorary degrees to Tim Berners-Lee, Hillary Clinton Papal bull reenactment Original papal bull given to us by an antipope But we dont tell anyone that 86. St Andrews University is great St Andrews' commitment to student welfare and safety is reflected in our consistently low drop out rate - at just over 1% it's the lowest in Scotland and the lowest in the UK behind only Oxford and Cambridge. http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/parents/aboutstandrews/ 87. St Andrews University is great Put another way (if your parents contribute to your choice or funding of University) your parents would send you to the place with the least chance of seeing you again! 88. CS at St Andrews is Great Really close attention to quality teaching Outstanding level of equipment provision Focus on project work in every year Optional in subhonours Compulsory in honours Research leaders teaching at all levels 89. Were Number One Weve been ranked number one more than once But we dont care about league tables Kind of sort of well I mean we dont care but if you happen to look then yeah we are way up at the top and we dont really believe in them but you know we cant stop you looking But we do care deeply about providing great education Always looking at how to improve things And working with students to do so 90. A little bit of honesty Three years ago we were ranked much lower in Student Satisfaction But since not much changed each year Though we did listen to feedback And improved in certain areas We deduce that Computer Science in the UK is an incredibly satisfying subject to study 91. Computer Science is Great! Computer Science is a great choice of degree And Im somebody who did a Maths degree! Did do a Computer Science PhD though One reason (not the main one ) You can get to be Chief Scientific Advisor to the Scottish Government 92. Chief Geek Muffy Calder PhD St Andrews Chief Scientific Adviser to the Scottish Government Necklace spells out in ASCII Chief Geek! 93. A million digits of pi Photo: Ian Gent (or close relative) My mother Ann Margaret Gent A maths teacher 94. A woman of calculators Photo: Ian Gent (or close relative) 4 bit calculator from sisters dolls house base! Curta Calculator TI-57 Programmable Calculator imagesWikipedia 95. A million digits of pi Photo: Amazon One Million by Hendrik Hertzberg To show students just what a million is like 200 pages, 5000 dots per page, one million dots 96. A million digits of pi She never found the book So once I found online a million digits of pi and printed them for her As a present And I found them on a precursor of the web called gopher 97. Midair cockpit swapper Photo: LA(PHOT) Abbie Herron/MODPhoto: Ian Gent (or close relative) 98. An important piece of honesty Nobody has ever said My CS degree at St Andrews was easy We do work you hard Maybe harder than any other degree at St A. Not something were proud of But fundamentally its hard work to learn CS And our students are still very satisfied 99. Why study Computer Science? Its interesting Its fun Its important Its creative Its beautiful And its got lots and lots of layers! 100. Video Credit Why I love CS, by James Montgomery 2014 https://www.ucas.com/corporate/news-and-key- documents/love-learning-2014-competition-winners 101. Image Credits (1) Images not explicitly credited here are by one of University of St Andrews, Ian Gent, or family of Ian Gent Bologna University Crest, Vectorized by User:Nandhp [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons One Million Dots book cover, photo from Amazon.com Swordfish Aircraft Photo: LA(PHOT) Abbie Herron/MOD [OGL (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/1/)], via Wikimedia Commons Curta calculator By Larry McElhiney (Created this image in Indianapolis, IN) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons TI 57 France, mars 2006 by monster1000, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TI_57-b.jpg VT100, By Jason Scott (Flickr: IMG_9976) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons "Bitmap VS SVG" by Yug, modifications by 3247 - Unknown. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bitmap_VS_SVG.svg#/media/File:Bitmap_VS_SVG. svg 102. Image Credits (2) Jon Postel sitting in office by Carl Malamud https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jon_Postel_sitting_in_office.jpg "Paul Mockapetris" by Jordiipa - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_Mockapetris.JPG#/media/File:Paul_Mockapetris.JP G Ward Cunningham, By Carrigg Photography for the Wikimedia Foundation (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Ada Lovelace, by Alfred Edward Chalon [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Doug Engelbart By Alex Handy from Oakland, Nmibia (Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart Uploaded by Edward) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Grace Hopper By James S. Davis [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons "Alan Kay (3097597186)" by Marcin Wichary from San Francisco, U.S.A. - Alan KayUploaded by JoJan. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alan_Kay_(3097597186).jpg#/media/File:Alan_Kay_(309 7597186).jpg Tim Berners-Lee CP 2" by Silvio Tanaka - originally posted to Flickr as Tim Berners-Lee. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tim_Berners- Lee_CP_2.jpg#/media/File:Tim_Berners-Lee_CP_2.jpg Muffy Calder By Miguel Nacenta (University of St Andrews) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Jimmy Wales By Niccol Caranti (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons 103. Image Credits (3) "Marc Andreessen" by Brian Solis - IMG_8642. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marc_Andreessen.jpg#/media/File:Marc_Andreessen.jpg Charles Goldfarb, Charles F Goldfarb Press Kit, http://www.sgmlsource.com/press/ Ted Nelson By Dgies (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons Vannevar Bush OEM Defense, Public Domain, Karen Sparck Jones, University of Cambridge [CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons Sergey Brin By Joi Ito [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons "Larry Page in the European Parliament, 17.06.2009" by Marcin Mycielski, European Parliament (Stansfield) - Own work. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Larry_Page_in_the_European_Parliament,_17.06.2009.jpg#/me dia/File:Larry_Page_in_the_European_Parliament,_17.06.2009.jpg Bob Kahn, By | Veni Markovski (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Vint Cerf talking to Ian Gent, by zgr Akgn, https://twitter.com/ozgurakgun/status/613056047209648128/photo/1 Chris Lilley, By Andy Fitzsimon (https://www.flickr.com/photos/andyfitz/2494476574) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Abraham Lempel By Staelin (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons