Computer science (also called computing science) is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. One well known subject classification system for computer science is the ACM Computing Classification System devised by the Association for Computing Machinery.

Computer science can be described as all of the following:

Subfields

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Mathematical foundations

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Algorithms and data structures

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  • Algorithms – Sequential and parallel computational procedures for solving a wide range of problems.
  • Data structures – The organization and manipulation of data.

Artificial intelligence

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Outline of artificial intelligence

  • Artificial intelligence – The implementation and study of systems that exhibit an autonomous intelligence or behavior of their own.
  • Automated reasoning – Solving engines, such as used in Prolog, which produce steps to a result given a query on a fact and rule database, and automated theorem provers that aim to prove mathematical theorems with some assistance from a programmer.
  • Computer vision – Algorithms for identifying three-dimensional objects from a two-dimensional picture.
  • Soft computing, the use of inexact solutions for otherwise extremely difficult problems:
    • Machine learning - Development of models that are able to learn and adapt without following explicit instructions, by using algorithms and statistical models to analyse and draw inferences from patterns in data.
    • Evolutionary computing - Biologically inspired algorithms.
  • Natural language processing - Building systems and algorithms that analyze, understand, and generate natural (human) languages.
  • Robotics – Algorithms for controlling the behaviour of robots.

Communication and security

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Computer architecture

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  • Computer architecture – The design, organization, optimization and verification of a computer system, mostly about CPUs and Memory subsystems (and the bus connecting them).
  • Operating systems – Systems for managing computer programs and providing the basis of a usable system.

Computer graphics

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  • Computer graphics – Algorithms both for generating visual images synthetically, and for integrating or altering visual and spatial information sampled from the real world.
  • Image processing – Determining information from an image through computation.
  • Information visualization – Methods for representing and displaying abstract data to facilitate human interaction for exploration and understanding.

Concurrent, parallel, and distributed systems

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  • Parallel computing - The theory and practice of simultaneous computation; data safety in any multitasking or multithreaded environment.
  • Concurrency (computer science) – Computing using multiple concurrent threads of execution, devising algorithms for solving problems on various processors to achieve maximal speed-up compared to sequential execution.
  • Distributed computing – Computing using multiple computing devices over a network to accomplish a common objective or task and thereby reducing the latency involved in single processor contributions for any task.

Databases

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Outline of databases

Programming languages and compilers

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Scientific computing

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Software engineering

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Outline of software engineering

  • Formal methods – Mathematical approaches for describing and reasoning about software design.
  • Software engineering – The principles and practice of designing, developing, and testing programs, as well as proper engineering practices.
  • Algorithm design – Using ideas from algorithm theory to creatively design solutions to real tasks.
  • Computer programming – The practice of using a programming language to implement algorithms.
  • Human–computer interaction – The study and design of computer interfaces that people use.
  • Reverse engineering – The application of the scientific method to the understanding of arbitrary existing software.

Theory of computation

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History

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Professions

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Data and data structures

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Programming paradigms

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See also

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