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Computer Science

9 Articles

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The Year in Review
The Editors
[long_description] As the end of the year approaches, the editors are delighted to present our second annual review, highlighting the essays that best represent our aims, ambitions, attitudes, and even our animadversions. Collected here are some notable essays we published this year, some illuminating exchanges from our letters section, and a selection of our favorite links from The Rambler.
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The Origins of Python
Lambert Meertens
[short_description] Since its debut in 1991, Python’s accessibility and rich functionality has helped it gather a huge userbase. Its design was influenced by creator Guido van Rossum’s involvement with an earlier language, ABC.
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When Existence is Inefficient
Allyn Jackson
[short_description] How hard is it to solve a problem when a solution is guaranteed to exist? It is to address questions like this that the theoretical computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou invented the complexity class PPAD.
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Wacky Jabber
Douglas Hofstadter
[short_description] A sweetish suite of machine translations of a pseudo-Swedish paragraph concocted by Douglas Hofstadter. The resulting gobbledygook reveals the zombie-like nature of these highly vaunted programs.
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The Man Who Carried Computer Science on His Shoulders
Krzysztof Apt
[short_description] Little known outside his field, Edsger Dijkstra was a highly influential and often controversial figure in computer science. He was a pioneer and a genius whose work shaped the field like few others.
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An Antique Land
Benjamin Thierry
[short_description] Benjamin Thierry reviews Minitel: Welcome to the Internet by Julien Mailland and Kevin Driscoll. The French Minitel project, according to the authors, was much, much more than simply a public works project gone awry.
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Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains
Jean-Paul Delahaye
[short_description] What are cryptocurrencies and how do they work? Using bitcoin as a case study, Jean-Paul Delahaye surveys the current state of peer-to-peer cash systems and what their future may look like.
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Big Neuroscience
Erik Larson
[short_description] Modern neuroscience depends on huge computer-generated models and network diagrams of neuron circuits. If Big Data can offer new insights, this might be the place. Erik Larson criticizes such claims.
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The Mind in Its Place
David Gelernter
[short_description] The mind is its own place, John Milton observed. But where is this place, and what is its structure? David Gelernter argues that our unwillingness to confront these questions has got us into trouble.
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