Presentation : Technical

In groups of 2-3, students will give a 10-minute presentation on a paper, book, or other classic computing literature, and write a summary of the topic.

Topic Selection

Paper selections will be made during class on Thursday 11 September.

Here is a list of suggested classic papers or books in computer science you could choose to present:

• No Silver Bullet: Fred Brooks
• The Mythical Man-Month: Fred Brooks (the department has a copy)
• Go To Statement Considered Harmful: E. Dijkstra
• Some meditations on Advanced Programming: E. Dijkstra
• Computing Machinery and Intelligence: A.M. Turing
• A Mathematical Theory of Communication: Claude Shannon
• A Method for the Construction of Minimum-Redundancy Codes: D.A. Huffman
• On the Criteria to be Used in Decomposing Systems into Modules: D.L. Parnas
• Report on the Algorithmic Language ALGOL 60
• Design Principles Behind Smalltalk: Daniel Ingalls
• Revenge of the Nerds: Paul Graham
• Free Culture: Lawrence Lessig (you can also borrow a phyiscal copy from me)
• Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits: Gordon Moore
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Eric S. Raymond (borrow a physical copy from me)
• Can Programming be Liberated from the Von Neumann Style?: John Backus
• Notes on the Analytical Engine: Ada Augusta, Countess of Lovelace (you probably only want to look at the “Notes by the Translator”, which are actually written by Ada Lovelace)
• The Early History of Smalltalk: Alan Kay
• Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas: Seymour Papert
• Reflections on Trusting Trust: Ken Thompson
• Time, Clocks, and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed System: Leslie Lamport
• New directions in cryptography: Diffie, Hellman
• A method for obtaining digital signatures and public-key cryptosystems: Rivest, Shamir, Adleman

See also this list by Michael Eisenberg. Not everything on that list is appropriate/feasible: ask me if something on that list catches your fancy.

Presentation

Your talk should take no more than ten minutes. Yes, I will use a timer!

Both students must be involved in giving the presentation.

Grading

The presentation rubric linked above will be used to assess all presentations in this course. In order to receive credit, this presentation:

• May receive at most one score of 2, and no score of 1.
• Must score a 4 in at least 1/2 the categories.

You should put careful thought into preparing this presentation. What story do you want to tell? How can you most effectively communicate it with your audience?

Your presentations must use appropriate visual aids, such as slides or a whiteboard/chalkboard.

Revising

If this presentation does not meet the above specification:

• The instructor will provide written feedback with a rubric indicating areas to improve.
• If necessary, the instructor and student will agree on a date and topic for a new or revised presentation.

Written Summary

You should turn in a 2-page summary/review of your chosen paper/article/book, which includes the following.

• What are the main points? What did you learn from it? Why is it important? Do not simply summarize the content of the paper!

• Place the paper in a larger context: for example, you might connect it to contemporary ideas or practice, connect it to ideas encountered in courses you have taken, and try to convey a sense for why the paper is important/classic.