CS 100 (Learn) — CS 100 (Web) — Module 00
Welcome to Computer Science 100, or because that's way too many syllables... CS 100.
With a name like "Computer Science 100", you would probably expect that in this course you'll be learning a lot of fundamental Computer Science. Hello... it's right there in the title: Computer Science 100.
The simple truth is that Computer Science is not our primary focus. Oh, don't worry... we will sneak in some Computer Science throughout the course, but that is not our main objective.
The core goal of this course to help you better understand the computers, applications and websites that you interact with on a daily basis.
You might ask "What's the difference? Aren't Computer Science and understanding computers pretty much the same thing?"
Like most things in life, the answer is "it's complicated".
The science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke has a famous quotation: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
If I could somehow show you a computer from 50 years in the future it would seem pretty magical to you.
For most people, their understanding of how a computer works is so vague that it is effectively magic that they do not understand.
Our goal in this course is to dispel for you some of the magic surrounding computers. In other words, we're going to teach you how some of the magic tricks work.
And once you understand a few magic tricks, you will have a better intuition for how other tricks work.
But our goal in this course is to not train you to be a magician; we are not going to train you to be a Computer Scientist.
So aside from figuring out magic tricks, what can you expect from this course?
There will probably be some material you already know, but we will try to present it in a perspective or context that you've never seen before.
And we hope that there will be plenty of new content you encounter where you think "hey, that's pretty cool".
So instead of "Computer Science 100", feel free to think of this course as "Cool Stuff 100", because we believe it covers a lot of cool stuff.
Of course, this course was designed by an old white dude. Like... "over 40 years old" old. So his concept of what is "cool" may be a little outdated. He still thinks magic tricks are pretty cool.
In the end, we really hope that you enjoy the course, and that the world of computers will seem more wondrous, but less "magical".