Are you playing a role when using a computer? We certainly are! In this episode, we connect the worlds of theatre and computers. We discuss Brenda Laurel's book "Computers as Theatre” (1991). Per usual, Felienne has read the book. And as it turns out, it gave her a new way to look at the world. Human-computer interfaces provide a stage for performances! Just like last week, Hanna is asking questions and is having trouble keeping her homework short. There is just so much to say about human-computer interaction, procrastination, slaying metaphorical dragons and the never-ending flow of emails.

Links:

• Felienne's blog post and Hanna’s homework

Mentions:

• Brenda Laurel’s book: Computers as Theatre (1991)
• Kathy Sierra’s book: Badass: Making Users Awesome (2015)
• Biped: A coop action adventure game
• Stair Climber: The best machine in the gym

Audio and music credits:

• Song: "Curiosity Rag" (1910) by James E.C. Kelly (public domain)
• Sound effects and background sounds: Public domain/CC0 sounds from Freesound.org and self-recorded sounds
• Audio editing: Hanna at Earpolish.com

What is programming? This week, we take a stab at this fundamental question with Peter Naur's paper "Programming as Theory Building". Felienne has read the paper (more than once), and Hanna is asking her questions about it. Apparently, programming is more than just solving problems by writing code and involves theory building! Listen in to hear more about what this theory building entails (spoiler alert: it has something to do with being able to explain and defend the solutions we come up with), some beautiful quotes from the paper, and Felienne's ideas of what Naur's argument means for current AI practices, LLM usage, and the computer science curriculum. Read the paper, do the homework, or skip the homework and listen to Hanna's homework attempt instead.

Links:

• Naur's paper
• Felienne's blog post and Hanna’s homework
• Hanna's pomodoro timer (check it out before she gets too embarrassed and removes it)

Audio and music credits:

• Song: "Curiosity Rag" (1910) by James E.C. Kelly (public domain)
• Sound effects and background sounds: Public domain/CC0 sounds from Freesound.org and self-recorded sounds
• Audio editing: Hanna at Earpolish.com

Our teaser episode for the Computer Science Off Course podcast! We bring you one paper or book each week to widen your view on what Computer Science is, and what it could be.

Turing, Naur, Dreyfus, Laurel, and many more will bring some much-needed change in perspective for people who grew up on an information diet of only complex algorithms, programming, and math!

Read along with us (Felienne and Hanna), do the homework and see that there is more between heaven and earth than computers and compilers.

Mentions:

• If Books Could Kill Podcast
• The Academic Imperfectionist Podcast
• Deep Questions podcast

Audio and music credits:

• Song: "Curiosity Rag" (1910) by James E.C. Kelly (public domain)
• Sound effects and background sounds: Public domain/CC0 sounds from Freesound.org and self-recorded sounds
• Audio editing: Hanna at Earpolish.com