<aside> 🗣️ Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. — Edsger Dijkstra
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Today computing is really important and whatever reason you want to learn it Welcome!
Our approach is to define things and then build a castle. We define Computing as the creation, and use of computers [4]. Informally, we define a computer as a programmable machine usually electronic that can give outputs, retrieve, and process data —insights and information. In the theory of computation, you might learn a formal definition.
But, how can you build a computer? how can you connect with other computers and other humans? what can do computers and what can they not? are they secure? how can you build Artificial Intelligence to be better than humans? They are some questions that different study areas answer, and we encourage you to answer all of them at least in a superficial way.
Those disciplines are Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Information Systems, Information Technology, and Software Engineering, Data Science. They are the current Computing areas, but they are not all of them —the future is exciting. They are other fields that use computing, we call those fields Computing+X e.g. BioComputing.
The discipline of Computer science is the systematic study of processes (how-to knowledge) and their derived systems —software— that describe and transform a domain of discourse -information and data-: their theory, analysis, design, delivery, efficiency, implementation, and application. Sometimes wrongly Computer science is equally equated with all Computing, but the former is more theoretical focus than other computing disciplines —Software engineering, Computer engineering, or Cybersecurity, …
A 1995 U.S. government “blue book” defines “Computer science” like this: “The systematic study of computing systems and computation. The body of knowledge resulting from this discipline contains theories for understanding computing systems and methods; design methodology, algorithms, and tools; methods for the testing of concepts; methods of analysis and verification; and knowledge representation and implementation.” So, Computer science has two approaches Mathematics —logic— and Engineering. Interesting noting that Mathematics changes of course, but engineering changes a lot more.
TODO: Computational thinking by Stephen Wolfram (2016).
Money —Maybe you want to learn how to build a Killer app or work in Big Tech Companies.
Funny —when you understand what happened.
Power —IA is coming up and Cybersecurity is really important.
Motives For Writing Free Software - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation. (2022, December 27). Retrieved from https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fs-motives.html
If you want to learn State-of-art, you have to learn from the best people, ACM and IEEE are the institutions you must read.