Computer Science: An Overview (13th Global Edition)

Description

For Introduction to Computer Science courses.

Surveys the breadth of computer science—with the depth needed to explore concepts

Computer Science: An Overview is written for students of computer science as well as students from other disciplines. Its broad coverage and clear exposition are accessible to students from all backgrounds, encouraging a practical and realistic understanding of the subject.  Written to provide students with a bottom-up, concrete-to-abstract foundation, this broad background exposes beginning computer science students to the breadth of the subject in which they are planning to major, and students from other disciplines to what they need to relate to the technical society in which they live.

Individual chapters are independent, and can be covered in an order that suits instructor course needs with selected content marked as optional for the introductory course. With a new full-color design, each chapter in the 13th Edition has seen revisions, updates, and corrections from the previous editions. The text also continues to use Python to provide programming tools for exploration and experimentation. More than 1,000 questions and exercises, Chapter Review Problems, and Social Issues questions reinforce core concepts. The text’s Companion Website extends resources to enhance the course.

Key Features

Develops a practical, realistic understanding of computer science

• This text follows a bottom-up arrangement of subjects that progresses from the concrete to the abstract—an order that results in a sound pedagogical presentation in which each topic leads to the next.
• o Although the text follows this natural progression, the individual chapters and sections are independent and can usually be read as isolated units or rearranged to form alternative sequences of study.
• Ethical and legal aspects of areas such as Internet security, software engineering, and database technology bring to light what students should know to be safe and responsible users of technology.
• Uses Python code examples and Python-like pseudocode, due to its wide acceptance in other STEM fields, such as physics and biology, and as the language of choice for computational science applications.
• Each chapter includes a collection of questions called Social Issues that challenge students to think about the relationship between the material in the text and the society in which they live.

A structured approach that develops a practical, realistic understanding of computer science in your students.

• A bottom-up arrangement of subjects progresses from the concrete to the abstract.
• Allows you to teach your course your way as individual chapters and sections can be read as isolated units or rearranged to form alternative sequences of study.

Learning features to reinforce core concepts to your students.

• Questions/Exercises at the end of each section review the material just discussed, extend the previous discussion, or hint at related topics to be covered later.
• Social Issues questions are designed for thought and discussion. Many can be used to launch research assignments culminating in short written or oral reports.

New to this Edition

Enhanced full-colour design aid your students’ learning with visual aids.

• Many figures and diagrams are now rendered more descriptively.
• Syntax colouring is now used to better effect for clarifying code and pseudocode segments in the text.
• Reflects the use of colour in most modern programming interfaces to aid your students’ understanding of code.

Additional content to aid students working towards College Board Advanced Placement® Computer Science Principles (‘CSP’) exam.

• While the primary audience for this book remains university level introductory courses, this edition also draws on CSP content to better assist students and instructors either preparing for the AP® CSP exam, or taking a university level course that is intended to correspond with the credit from that exam.
• Includes many of the big ideas and computational practices codified in the CSP framework.
• Prior editions of the book have been used in pilot versions of CSP courses, and as a professional development resource for educators preparing to teach the high school version of the course.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
   1. The Role of Algorithms
   2. The History of Computing
   3. An Outline of Our Study
   4. The Overarching Themes of Computer Science
2. Part 1. Data Storage
   1. Bits and Their Storage
   2. Main Memory
   3. Mass Storage
   4. Representing Information as Bit Patterns
   5. The Binary System
   6. Storing Integers
   7. Storing Fractions
   8. Data and Programming
   9. Data Compression
   10. Communication Errors
3. Part 2. Data Manipulation
   1. Computer Architecture
   2. Machine Language
   3. Program Execution
   4. Arithmetic/Logic Instructions
   5. Communicating with Other Devices
   6. Programming Data Manipulation
   7. Other Architectures
4. Part 3. Operating Systems
   1. The History of Operating Systems
   2. Operating System Architecture
   3. Coordinating the Machine’s Activities
   4. Handling Competition Among Processes
   5. Security
5. Part 4. Networking and the Internet
   1. Network Fundamentals
   2. The Internet
   3. The World Wide Web
   4. Internet Protocols
   5. Simple Client Server
   6. Cybersecurity
6. Part 5. Algorithms
   1. The Concept of an Algorithm
   2. Algorithm Representation
   3. Algorithm Discovery
   4. Iterative Structures
   5. Recursive Structures
   6. Efficiency and Correctness
7. Part 6. Programming Languages
   1. Historical Perspective
   2. Traditional Programming Concepts
   3. Procedural Units
   4. Language Implementation
   5. Object-Oriented Programming
   6. Programming Concurrent Activities
   7. Declarative Programming
8. Part 7. Software Engineering
   1. The Software Engineering Discipline
   2. The Software Life Cycle
   3. Software Engineering Methodologies
   4. Modularity
   5. Tools of the Trade
   6. Quality Assurance
   7. Documentation
   8. The Human-Machine Interface
   9. Software Ownership and Liability
9. Part 8. Data Abstractions
   1. Basic Data Structures
   2. Related Concepts
   3. Implementing Data Structures
   4. A Short Case Study
   5. Customized Data Types
   6. Classes and Objects
   7. Pointers in Machine Language
10. Part 9. Database Systems
    1. Database Fundamentals
    2. The Relational Model
    3. Object-Oriented Databases
    4. Maintaining Database Integrity
    5. Traditional File Structures
    6. Data Mining
    7. Social Impact of Database Technology
11. Part 10. Computer Graphics
    1. The Scope of Computer Graphics
    2. Overview of 3D Graphics
    3. Modeling
    4. Rendering
    5. Dealing with Global Lighting
    6. Animation
12. Part 11. Artificial Intelligence
    1. Intelligence and Machines
    2. Perception
    3. Reasoning
    4. Additional Areas of Research
    5. Artificial Neural Networks
    6. Robotics
    7. Considering the Consequences
13. Part 12. Theory of Computation
    1. Functions and Their Computation
    2. Turing Machines
    3. Universal Programming Languages
    4. A Noncomputable Function
    5. Complexity of Problems
    6. Public-Key Cryptography
14. Appendixes
    1. A. ASCII
    2. B. Circuits to Manipulate Two’s Complement Representations
    3. C. Vole: A Simple Machine Language
    4. D. High-Level Programming Languages
    5. E. The Equivalence of Iterative and Recursive Structures
    6. F. Answers to Questions & Exercises
15. Index