Thread: How does research with CS work?

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    How does research with CS work?

    So I was thinking about possibly doing research in the future as a Computer Science major...however something left me kind of stumped. How does research work in Computer Science? For medical research, you analyze living organisms and its structure, or analyze the reaction of chemicals/medication with a certain virus to see what happens. But how does research with computer science work? I'm rather curious about this.

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    C++ Witch laserlight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dnguyen1022
    So I was thinking about possibly doing research in the future as a Computer Science major...however something left me kind of stumped. How does research work in Computer Science?
    I suppose one aspect would be very mathematical: you prove a theorem, or provide a counterexample to a conjecture. Another aspect would be coming up with say, an algorithm for some problem, along with analysis and proof of correctness for the algorithm. Or maybe you do not come up with an algorithm, but publish some theoretical analysis on aspects of the problem, e.g., a theoretical lower bound on the complexity of the problem.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bjarne Stroustrup (2000-10-14)
    I get maybe two dozen requests for help with some sort of programming or design problem every day. Most have more sense than to send me hundreds of lines of code. If they do, I ask them to find the smallest example that exhibits the problem and send me that. Mostly, they then find the error themselves. "Finding the smallest program that demonstrates the error" is a powerful debugging tool.
    Look up a C++ Reference and learn How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

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    Hm..sounds sort of complicated..what would say would be a "beginner" type of research? Say...at the low-mid undergrad levels. Excluding students who excel at what they do of course..

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    C++ Witch laserlight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dnguyen1022
    what would say would be a "beginner" type of research? Say...at the low-mid undergrad levels. Excluding students who excel at what they do of course..
    I am not so sure, actually. I have a friend who is working on an honours year project that is very much what I described in my previous post, but then she does excel at computer science. My own thesis is more towards the software engineering side of things.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bjarne Stroustrup (2000-10-14)
    I get maybe two dozen requests for help with some sort of programming or design problem every day. Most have more sense than to send me hundreds of lines of code. If they do, I ask them to find the smallest example that exhibits the problem and send me that. Mostly, they then find the error themselves. "Finding the smallest program that demonstrates the error" is a powerful debugging tool.
    Look up a C++ Reference and learn How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

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    Malum in se abachler's Avatar
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    I worked for an R&D company designing artificial intelligence applications. Generally CS research involves developing applications that don't already exist, as opposed to development which is just designing a new version of an existing application.

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