Introduction to Computer Science

Many people have a distorted view of what computer scientists do, what it means to study computer science at the university, and what the prerequisites are. The image of the lone nerd programmer at his or her computer working long days with no contacts with other people is unfortunately widespread, and that image certainly does not attract people to the discipline. In this book, we try to give an accurate idea of what any computer scientist will be asked to do as part of pretty much any area of computer science, information technology, or software development. We believe that there are three essential elements to any work in those areas, namely FOUNDATION in order to establish a sound theoretical base for the work, ALGORITHMS to invent efficient solutions to the problem at hand, and PROGRAMMING to create the ultimate working solution. The book discusses those three elements in separate parts, using an object that is widely used in software applications, namely the GRAPH.