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231 Comments
- t0x2c, on 06/08/2008, -14/+160Um, the internet?
- ZephyrNinety, on 06/08/2008, -14/+128Porn.
- mmmunaf, on 06/08/2008, -8/+91For the last time: PERSONAL COMPUTER != COMPUTER SCIENCE. PROGRAMMING != COMPUTER SCIENCE. YOUR VIDEO CARD != COMPUTER SCIENCE. %$#@.
- uglypercy, on 06/08/2008, -0/+61Most important invention in the history of Computer Science is probably Turing Completeness (Alan Turing), Boolean algebra (George Boole), the program (Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace), or the algorithm itself (Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi).
- doctechnical, on 06/08/2008, -10/+56The example code was pretty silly, it can be reduced to a single line:
IF LEN(t$) < 80 THEN s$ = SPACE$(40 - LEN(t$) / 2) + t$ ELSE s$ = t$
If you're going to present a horror show example of code, do it in COBOL. :) - inactive, on 06/08/2008, -2/+42Logic Gates.
Go ahead and bicker about your "programming languages" they all get reduced to a 1 or 0 at the logic gate, without which no operation could be performed. Nor are logic gates dependent upon transistors which were an achievement for manufacturing, not pure computer 'science'.
You can build a logic gate with toothpicks or disco dancers. - tardmaster, on 06/08/2008, -9/+45The GUI
- kwazyhulk, on 06/08/2008, -1/+28Just seeing that "GOTO" brought back horrible nightmares.
- anonymousT, on 06/08/2008, -8/+35OOP
- shawnanigans, on 06/08/2008, -3/+26So disappointed it took as many comments as it did to get to porn.
- zortnac, on 06/08/2008, -1/+23hmmmm...I would have said the compiler, but routines are a good answer too! After that...maybe...the internet? But what does that mean, really? It means IP and TCP, so maybe the better way to say "the internet" would be the OSI stack and the concept of a communications protocol? Problem is, comp sci can't really lay claim to that one :(
- doctechnical, on 06/08/2008, -7/+28If you're talking about what's put computers into everyone's home (and it sounds like you are), then it's not Windows, it's the internet. That's the "killer app" that made Aunt Clara get a computer. The fact that the thing shipped with Windows installed is beside the point.
The killer app that put computers on everyone's desk at work was Lotus 1-2-3, which was a spreadsheet program (the first was Visicalc). That ran under DOS. - jefu, on 06/08/2008, -1/+21The notion of a program as data. Turing was responsible for a lot of it, Von Neumann did the rest. Everything since has just been optimization.
- chuckDontSurf, on 06/08/2008, -1/+20So really, what you're talking about is Boolean Algebra.
- groumpf, on 06/08/2008, -4/+18Then you won't like computer science I'm afraid...
- GorfTron, on 06/08/2008, -2/+16Social stratification and exclusion. It produced the social circumstances that created the desperate nerds who make the computing world work.
- skyshock1, on 06/08/2008, -1/+14TCP/IP specifically.
- zwaldowski, on 06/08/2008, -3/+14Go Windows Yourself.
- groumpf, on 06/08/2008, -1/+12There is... With vacuum tubes. They were as big as a building, and as slow as a pack of giant turtle pumped full of opium, though.
- tuxidomasx, on 06/08/2008, -1/+12I love LAMP
- blagoaw, on 06/08/2008, -1/+11Many of the things suggested in the comments here might not be within "computer science" in the way that the article intended.
Maybe I'd suggest some grammar theory that gave rise to some higher level programming languages and their compilers, and to the tools used to create them. Something like context-free grammars or Backus–Naur Form.. which were going to come along in some way of course, but were important steps in the development of the programming languages we all know. - cypriss9, on 06/08/2008, -2/+12The point is not that this was bad code or how many lines it was on. The point was that it's not encapsulated in a nice named routine; programmers instead would have to either duplicate the code, or to use simple GOTO's or GOSUB's. Also, your code is missing the line number, and the return statement.
- Hefelumpman, on 06/08/2008, -1/+10The command line!
- Daniel591992, on 06/08/2008, -0/+9Well, someone did say the internet, and we all know....
- DoctaLivingston, on 06/08/2008, -3/+12...the internet is for porn.
- Iwantawii, on 06/08/2008, -2/+11Do you ever find yourself wishing that you could copy and paste in real life? Or when you make a mistake while writing or drawing something your first instinct is "where's ctrl-z?"
- hollyminkowski, on 06/08/2008, -1/+10Bingo...the logic gate is the best answer!
Nikola Tesla held the original patents on gates. (constructed using small relays)
They were an integral part of a radio remote control boat he demonstrated in NYC.
This was before radio was supposed to have even been invented by the way. - swordphish, on 06/08/2008, -5/+13HyperCard
- 13B1303, on 06/08/2008, -6/+14Mountain Dew rivals the routine in CS history. I would gamble the first routine was compiled while the programmer slammed some Dew and yelled upstairs for his mom to put more on the grocery list.
- skywake, on 06/08/2008, -1/+8I personally would have said logic... but I suppose we aren't allowed to go back to the greeks when talking about computing. Lets forget that things like first-order logic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-order_logic make up about 80% of the computer science body of knowledge. :P
- ploop, on 06/08/2008, -1/+8Duff's Device.
- diggydoc, on 06/08/2008, -0/+7"fire" is not an invention.
- joebaloney, on 06/08/2008, -4/+11This guy says Ruby is a teen and Javascript is a preteen, yet they both came out in 1995.
- zwaldowski, on 06/08/2008, -3/+10PHP is like that morbidly obese IT guy at your office. Everybody loves him, and everybody tries to get him to do things his job doesn't normally detail. He can't jog any sort of distance unless you really do some screwed up *****.
- bagboyrebel, on 06/08/2008, -0/+7see, these are the kind of comments we get when we try to appeal to a broader user base.
- SlimFastForYou, on 06/08/2008, -5/+11I guessed programming languages, so technically I was "right" but had broader scope.
- kleverness, on 06/08/2008, -2/+8You're the only one how seem to know what computer science means :) dugg!
- daeken, on 06/08/2008, -1/+7I'd actually argue that it's the greatest invention in the history of CS. Between homoiconicity and real control structures, I'd argue it's had a bigger impact on CS than any other invention.
- AzureRise, on 06/08/2008, -6/+12Doom.
- j3ff86, on 06/08/2008, -0/+6My vote goes to turing machines.
- ToadX, on 06/08/2008, -0/+6No. The author doesn't talk about the object-oriented programming paradigm at all. He's talking about routines, also known as functions or methods.
- prgmctan, on 06/08/2008, -0/+6woosh
- KibibyteBrain, on 06/08/2008, -0/+5Actually, Computers themselves were not a development of computer science, but instead Electrical Engineering. There were and are analog computers that do not even use logic as a foundation to their operation. And of course even before that basic counters that required no real formal theory to operate at all.
And Computer Science, although not by that moniker, has also been around much longer than computing machines themselves, as well. - bagboyrebel, on 06/08/2008, -0/+5if it was opposite day maybe...
- ronaldmonster, on 06/08/2008, -6/+11/b/
- dillhole, on 06/08/2008, -1/+6How do I do that?
- NeverReturnKid, on 06/08/2008, -1/+6This reminded why I hated computer science so much and why I changed my major in college after one year as a computer science major.
- ziptnf, on 06/08/2008, -2/+7Isn't that what the internet is for?
- frogman54, on 06/08/2008, -0/+5Solitaire. I love when the cards bounce after you win. Genius!
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