Perhaps the most fundamental idea in modern computer science is that of interactive processes. Computation is embedded in a (physical or virtual) world; its role is to interact with that world to produce desired behavior. While von Neumann serial programming has it that computation-as-calculation uses inputs -- at the beginning -- to produce outputs -- at the end -- computation-as-interaction treats inputs as things that are monitored and outputs as actions that are taken over the lifetime of an ongoing process. By beginning with a decomposition in terms of interacting computational processes, we can teach our students a model of the world much closer to the one that underlies the thinking of most computer professionals.
Rethinking CS101 is a project to develop a curriculum for the first course in computer science based around the idea of computation as interaction.
Project Resources
- Courses from the past and present that use CS101 materials
- Publications related to the CS101 project
- Frequently asked questions about the project
- People involved with the project
