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So I started my foundations of computer science course today (finite state machines, Turing machines, computability, etc), and the professor handed out a bunch of stuff.  Among this was a sample test from before, which had the following question:

Give an estimate of the maximum number of different four-state non-deterministic finite state accepters that can be on a three letter alphabet.  Explain your answer.

Since I've already looked at some of the basics before, I was able to answer this, and then give a general solution for an alphabet of size n and an s-state machine.  I then realized that given n and s, you could determine the number of bits necessary to represent the entire design of a non-deterministic finite state accepter.  So then I had this idea:  design a machine that takes in a string containing first 2 numbers (s and n) and then a series of 0's and 1's representing the nfsa to be simulated.  The machine would be able to go back and forth and have some kind of auxiliary memory.

Discuss this /prog/, or have you only read SICP and nothing more?

>>28

Or you could be a huge queer and realize the creating computer programs for people to use is not computer science. It is computer software engineering. Notice how those 2 things are not the same. I am not sure as your understanding it really fucking remedial.

It is funny when shit heads like you think you are so fucking smart, but you don't understand the difference between science and engineering.

Computer scientists are the fags that create sorting algorithms, pseudo-random number generators and toy languages that no one will ever fucking use. Actual new and useful developments in computer science are very few and far between. While that could be said for many sciences, it is especially true more-so for computer science.

This is /prog/ as in computer programming. It is a board that discusses engineering and computer science insofar as it applies to the engineering of computer programs.

I love how fuckers get a CS degree because they want to write the next great applications that will drive the world. It is only when its too late do they discover that they have studied the wrong discipline. Instead of creating the worlds best web browser ever fucking made as they had hoped and dreamed they would someday do, you just did some work on a garbage collector that will never be used except by you to do nothing with.