Pascal. At that time it was felt that the most important skill a student could acquire was
learning to program in a high-level language. In the mid-to-late’80s, a rapid increase in
computer use caused the course to evolve into something called “computer literacy” in
which students learned about new applications of computing in such fields as business,
medicine, law, and education. With the growth of personal computers and productivity
software, a typical early to mid-1990s version of this course would spend a semester
teaching students to use word processors, databases, spreadsheets, presentation
software, and electronic mail. The most recent change has been its evolution into a
Web-centric course where students learn to design and implement Web pages using
technology such as HTML, XML, ASP, and Java applets.
In many institutions the computer science service course has evolved yet again. There
are two reasons for this. First, virtually all students in college today are familiar with
personal computers and productivity software. They have been using word processors
and presentation systems since elementary school and are quite familiar with social
networks, online retailing, e-mail, and chat rooms. Many have designed Web pages and
even manage their own Web sites and blogs. In this day and age, a course that focuses
on applications of computing will be of little or no interest.
But a more important reason for rethinking the structure of this course, and the
primary reason why we authored this book, is the following observation:
Most computer science service courses do not teach students the foundations and
fundamentals of computer science!
We believe quite strongly that students in a computer science service course should
receive a solid grounding in the fundamental intellectual concepts of computer science
in addition to important uses of computing and information technology. This parallels
the introductory course in biology, physics, or geology, where the central
underpinnings of the respective fields are introduced. The topics in such a computer
science course would not be limited to “fun” applications such as Web page design,
social networking, and interactive graphics, but would also cover issues such as
algorithms, hardware design, computer organization, system software, language
models, theory of computation, and social and ethical issues of computing. An to these
core ideas exposes students to the overall richness and beauty of the field, and it allows
them to not only use computers and software effectively but to understand and
appreciate the basic ideas underlying their creation and implementation.
The Cs1 Course
The design of a first course for computer science majors has also come in for a great
deal of discussion. Since the emergence of computer science as a distinct academic
discipline in the 1960s, the first course has always been an introduction to
programming—from BASIC to FORTRAN to Pascal, to C++, Java, and Python today. Some
new programming-related topics have been added to the syllabus (e.g., object-oriented
design), but the central focus has remained high-level language programming.
However, the most recent ACM/IEEE curriculum report proposed a number of
alternative models for the first course, including a breadth-first overview, an approach
that has gained in popularity over time.
A first course for computer science majors using the breadth-first model emphasizes
early exposure to the sub-disciplines of the field rather than placing exclusive
emphasis on programming. This gives new majors a more complete and well-rounded
understanding of their chosen field of study. As stated in the Curriculum Report,
“[introductory] courses that emphasize only this one aspect [programming] fail to let
