The Default Library
Paths / Path 24

Computer Science

How computers compute, what can and can't be computed, and how to build software that works.

For: anyone starting the degree, anyone who codes without the theory, anyone curious what's under the screen.

17readings
3.3 hoursof reading
4stages
17 reads
Not started
Start the path Download the path (.zip) Plain text (.txt)
Stage 1

Year 1 · The language

4 readings · 45 min
  1. 01ReadInteractiveQuiz11 min

    Programming Fundamentals: Instructions, State and Taking Things Apart

    Variables, loops, functions: the grammar every program is written in.
  2. 02ReadInteractiveQuiz12 min

    Discrete Mathematics: Counting, Logic and Proof

    Logic, sets, proofs and counting: the maths computers are built on.
  3. 03ReadInteractiveQuiz10 min

    Calculus I: Slopes, Totals and the Bridge Between Them

    Rates of change and limits, which reappear in algorithm analysis and machine learning.
  4. 04ReadInteractiveQuiz12 min

    Data Structures: How Arrangement Decides Speed

    How data is arranged decides how fast a program can be.
Stage 2

Year 2 · How it works

5 readings · 1 hours
  1. 05ReadInteractiveQuiz10 min

    Algorithms: Why Growth Beats Speed

    The ideas that make programs fast, and the proof they are correct.
  2. 06ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Computer Architecture: Why Your Processor Spends Its Life Waiting

    From transistors to instructions: what a processor actually does.
  3. 07ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Linear Algebra: Machines That Move Space

    Graphics, search engines and AI are linear algebra underneath.
  4. 08ReadInteractiveQuiz12 min

    Probability & Statistics: Reasoning with Uncertainty

    Randomness, data and uncertainty, which every real system deals with.
  5. 09ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Software Engineering: How Teams Change Code for Years

    Real software is written by teams, over years; that changes everything.
Stage 3

Year 3 · Systems

4 readings · 47 min
  1. 10ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Operating Systems: How One Machine Safely Pretends to Be Many

    How one machine runs hundreds of programs at once without chaos.
  2. 11ReadInteractiveQuiz12 min

    Computer Networks: Why Latency, Not Bandwidth, Rules

    How a message crosses the planet in a fraction of a second.
  3. 12ReadInteractiveQuiz11 min

    Databases: Why Your Data Survives a Power Cut

    How data is stored, queried and kept consistent when everyone writes at once.
  4. 13ReadInteractiveQuiz11 min

    Programming Languages & Compilers: How Text Becomes a Machine

    How code you write becomes code a machine runs.
Stage 4

Year 4 · The frontier

4 readings · 46 min
  1. 14ReadInteractiveQuiz13 min

    Theory of Computation: What Can and Cannot Be Computed

    The limits: what no computer can ever do, and what is merely hard.
  2. 15ReadInteractiveQuiz11 min

    Machine Learning: Programs That Write Their Own Rules

    Programs that learn their behaviour from data.
  3. 16ReadInteractiveQuiz12 min

    Computer Security: Thinking Like an Attacker

    Thinking like an attacker so systems survive real ones.
  4. 17ReadInteractiveQuiz10 min

    Multivariable Calculus: Calculus on a Landscape

    The gradients that train every neural network are multivariable calculus.
When you finish

MIT OpenCourseWare 6.0001 and 6.006, Harvard CS50 (free), and the textbooks named at the end of each subject.

Next path →

Electrical Engineering

How electricity is made, moved, shaped and turned into information: from the grid to the chip to the radio in your pocket.