Data Structures and Algorithms
They are the basic elements of every computer program. The choice of data structures and the design of procedures to manipulate them hold the key to verifying that a program does what it is meant to do...
Features
Programming Languages
They offer a great diversity of ways to specify a computation. A language transforms the computer into a "virtual machine" whose features and capabllities are determined by the software
Operating Systems
A computer operating system spans multiple layers of complexity, from commands entered at a keyboard to the details of electronic switching. The system is organized as a hierarchy of abstractions...
Computer Software for Working with Language
Programs can manipulate linguistic symbols with great facility, as in word-processing software, but attempts to have computers deal with meaning are vexed by ambiguity in human languages...
Computer Software for Graphics
No longer the exclusive domain of specialists, interactive computer graphics is fast becoming the standard medium of communication between computers and all kinds of users
Computer Software for Information Management
Enormous volumes of stored data are of use only if information can be retrieved quickly in an understandable form. Software for the purpose must reflect the structure of the data base and of the storage medium...
Computer Software for Process Control
Software of this kind has the primary function of communicating with and governing physical devices. A process-control computer does not set its own pace but responds to events in the real world...
Computer Software in Science and Mathematics
Computation offers a new means of describing and investigating scientific and mathematical systems. Simulation by computer may be the only way to predict how certain complicated systems evolve...
Computer Software for Intelligent Systems
The key to intelligent problem solving lies in reducing the random search for solutions. To do so intelligent computer programs must tap the same underlying sources of power as human beings do...
Departments
50 and 100 Years Ago: September 1984
Science and the Citizen, September 1984
- Letters
Letters to the Editor, September 1984
- Recommended
Books, September 1984
- Amateur Scientist
The Amateur Scientist, September 1984
- Departments
The Authors, September 1984
Computer Recreations, September 1984
Bibliography, September 1984
