Computer Science: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

When I first read this little book a couple of years ago I thought that Subrata Dasgupta must be a genius to be able to see so clearly the essence of this strange science. I especially was helped by his viewing programs as "liminal artefacts" (with both an abstract and a material face). The recommendations for "Further Study" are mainly "classics" such as works by Donald Knuth, so you can see that this is not meant to be a pop level introduction to programming but an overview of a new science. The book actually uses the word "wisdom" at one point in referring to the goal of this science of the liminal and it seems to me that it is best appreciated by anyone who wants a keener, and wiser, understanding of what "computer science" means. I'm writing this review because I've started reading through the book for my second time and re-discovering that it's a great (little) book.

The book presents a good overview of computer science, but some parts are hard to read for a novice. There are some valuable discussions at the beginning and, especially, at the end of the book, but a lot of complicated terminology in the middle.

Too much definition of terms and little useful information.

Satisfied.

AOK

I've ready many of the very short introductions, and few manage to accomplish what Dasgupta has done for computer science. His comprehensive and balanced overview is perfect preparation for further study—precisely what one would expect from the series.

the epilogue is philosophical garbage.

The content covers main aspects of CS with well-balanced theoretical chit-chat. I will read it again for sure.

A bit too philosophical for my liking. I would have liked something a bit more technical.

On multiple locations in the Kindle version indexes and exponents are displayed as normal text. For example it shows 4 = log216. On other locations it's more severe than this. This renders some parts of the book completely useless. In an introductory work this is especially detrimental.The formatting of the printed version is alright.Both versions contain minor mistakes like "1 megabit = 10^3 bits" (10^6 would be correct).

As a PhD in computer science I didn't expect to see anything new here, but I did hope to find a nice overview of modern computer science. This book covers some of the basics - algorithms, simple architecture and the like - but offers no real insight into the direction the field is going. It appears to be written for a very general audience who want a rough idea of how computers and algorithms work - and it is fine in this regard. It is not however a good introduction to the academic discipline of computer science.