FUNDAMENTAL THEORECTICAL CONCEPTS, SELECTED FOR THE STARTING COMPUTER SCIENTIST

Abstract

This is a report on the subjects that I have chosen as material for an introductory course to the theory of computer science. I have been teaching such a course for many years and I have tried out many different approaches - the latest one, described here, seems to be the most successful one so far. My main objective has been to introduce the fundamental concepts of Computability and Specification, Implementation and Verification to the student in such a way that the essential heuristic ideas, on which these concepts are based become transparent. It is a nontrivial task to find a good compromise between the amount of formal detail that is needed to describe these concepts properly and between the amount of informal and intuitive argument that is necessary for the student to clearly see the underlying ideas.