CS Blog

Writing for Communications of the ACM, Esther Shein has just interviewed Shriram Krishnamurthi among several programming language experts on the subject of Python as an introduction to coding. Going beyond some of the remarks made by his fellow interviewees, Shriram not only offers an analysis of Python's weaknesses (limited support for testing) and strengths ("a pleasant syntax, a large set of libraries") but also outlines some of the negative impacts on curricula that he believes are resulting from its increasing popularity.

You can read the entire article here.

Following up on her recent Providence Journal editorial on computer security and privacy, Anna Lysyanskaya will be appearing again on WPRI as a guest of Dan Yorke State of Mind. 

To watch, tune in at 7:30 PM on February 23 on the following channels: 

• myRITV on channel 64-2 over the air, or on:
• Verizon 14 (SD) or 514 (HD)
• Cox 811 (SD) or 1015 (HD)
• Comcast 292 (SD) or 820 (HD, some areas)
• Full Channel 91
• Charter 113

Afterward, the full episode will be available at: http://wpri.com/category/on-air/dan-yorke-state-of-mind/

_{In the "Smart News in East Side Education" section of their latest issue, East Side Monthly recognized PhD candidate Gryte Satas} for her leadership with the local chapter of Girls Who Code, a national organization dedicated to closing the gender gap in technology and engineering by equipping girls with skills and resources to pursue opportunities in computing fields.

You can read the entire piece here.

Brown CS is proud to lend financial support to the FLAME Conference, Brown's first feminist conference for Rhode Island high school students.

FLAME will take place on Sunday, March 8, 2015 (International Women’s Day) and feature a variety of workshops run by Brown student groups and faculty. Some workshop topics include: gender inequality in the workplace, intersectionality, healthy relationships, and sexuality. The purpose of the conference is to provide an opportunity for feminist education to participants as well as to unite feminist-minded student groups at Brown.

To learn more, click here to visit the FLAME Conference web site.

by Kevin Stacey (Science News Officer, Physical Sciences)

It’s taken just a few decades for the Internet to sweep the globe as an economic, cultural, and political force. The question now is how and by whom should this border-spanning technology be governed. John Savage, professor of computer science at Brown University, addressed the issue of Internet governance at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose.

Savage presented at a session titled “Engineering Information: Adapting Risk and Resilience Frameworks to Cybersecurity” on Friday, Feb. 13, 2015. Afterward, he was cited by the ...

"I can tell you that protecting your privacy is possible and does not require giving up even a little bit of the convenience we have learned to enjoy." From her unique perspective as computer scientist and cryptography researcher, Professor Anna Lysyanskaya of Brown University's Department of Computer Science uses an editorial in today's Providence Journal to inform the public about the privacy solutions available and urge them to make safeguarding their data a priority.

The entire piece is available here.

As part of the Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative, Michael Littman of Brown Computer Science and Ian Gonsher of the School of Engineering created a new class last semester in which computer scientists teamed up with designers and engineers to explore possible ways people can interact with robots in the near future. They focused on telepresence robots because they believe this technology can have the most impact on people's lives in the short run.

To learn more, watch their video here.

"It's just about building and doing something you love with people who are supportive and want you to succeed," says Hack@Brown contributor Ricky Medina. He and others were interviewed by the Providence Journal, which covered last weekend's second annual Brown hackathon in this morning's edition. Their account of the "serious innovation" that occurred includes details of the proceedings, comments from attendees from across the country, and a video. It's available here.

by Emma Catlin

There's a lot of talk about how introductory classes discourage minorities, and making classes more "friendly" to those with little prior experience in coding is trending at universities. In one of Brown's introductory computer science classes, CS015, I think a successful effort has been made to encourage women to continue coding. The class provides many women role models in the TAs, of whom about half are women. I also appreciated the fact that in the lecture on the history of computer science, just as many important women figures were included as male.

Talking to students ...

As a department, how do we evaluate our success? Continued innovation from our students means that we've aimed courses at the field's best opportunities, then taught them with real devotion to our craft. Together, that enables students to produce work that advances the state of the art.

In this series, we'll showcase some of the outstanding student work of 2014:

Flick
designed by Gabriel Fernandez
for CS 1300: Designing, Developing and Evaluating User Interfaces
taught by Jeff Huang
for Brown CS

Gabriel describes his project by saying:

"An application that runs on top of every other app ...