Creating a computer science canon: a course of "classic" readings in computer science

Computer science has a reputation of being a discipline in a perpetual state of accelerated progress—a discipline in which our techniques, our hardware, our software systems, and our literature rarely exhibit a staying power of more than several years. While undeniably exciting, this state of continual intellectual upheaval can leave computer science students (and faculty) with a disturbing sense that there is no essential core of great work within the discipline. This paper describes a readings course entitled “Computer Science: the Canon” whose purpose is to counter this perception by exploring a set of “great works” in computer science. We describe our own (undoubtedly idiosyncratic) reading list used for the course, and discuss several central issues involved in offering such a course within a computer science curriculum.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: SIGCSE
• Authors: Michael Eisenberg
• Keywords: Accelerated Progress—a Discipline, Computer Science, Computer Science Students, Education, SIGCSE 2003