Computer Science
@CompSciFact
Followers
250K
Following
265
Media
606
Statuses
12K
Daily tweets about computer science and related stuff @JohnDCook.
Joined November 2010
“Cryptography is a mixture of mathematics and muddle, and without the muddle the mathematics can be used against you.” — Ian Cassels.
0
1
11
Design principles from Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley:. * Work on the right problem. * Explore the design space of solutions. * Look at the data. * Use the back of the envelope. * Build prototypes. * Make trade-offs when you have to. * Keep it simple.
1
1
15
'Writing code is often a constant struggle against distraction.' -- Joy of Clojure.
0
10
82
Cardinal rule of floating point arithmetic: If x and y agree to n bits, then you can lose up to n bits of precision computing x-y.
3
6
40
All integers are real numbers, but most computer representations of integers do not equal computer representations of real numbers.
0
1
16
Legendre and Ethereum. What does a eighteenth century French mathematician have to do with proof of custody?.
0
4
20
Proof: At n generations in the past a family tree has 2^n nodes. For sufficiently large n, 2^n is greater than the number of humans, and so some people appear twice in the tree.
1
1
13
Family trees are actually family directed acyclic graphs.
6
5
95
'The fastest algorithm can frequently be replaced by one that is almost as fast and much easier to understand.' -- Douglas W. Jones.
1
18
97
Pattern: Realizing that what you initially thought would always be a linear sequence turns out to be a tree or directed graph.
0
2
21