Here is some collected wisdom for the undergraduate CS classes I took at Berkeley, delivered without context or explanation. (Note that some classes have changed since I took them.) Most likely, you won’t get it until you’ve already finished the class.

CS61A: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

Everything is an abstraction. Almost everything is a closure (lambda).

CS61B: Data Structures

Every problem is a data structure problem.

CS61C: Machine Structures

Everything is data. Everything you do is a bitwise operation.

Math 54: Linear Algebra & Differential Equations

Everything is a matrix.

CS70: Discrete Mathematics and Probability

Everything is a bit string. Bayes’ Rule is almost always the solution.

CS162: Operating Systems Programming

Everything is a cache. Get concurrency right the first time.

CS164: Programming Languages and Compilers

Everything is a transformation. Almost everything is a tree transformation.

CS169: Software Engineering

Everything has a process. Write tests whenever possible.

CS170: Efficient Algorithms and Intractable Problems

Almost everything can be solved by dynamic programming. It’s called the Master theorem for a reason.

CS184: Graphics

Everything is an equation. It’s basically physics with efficiency hacks.

CS188: Artificial Intelligence

Maximize your expected utility.

This entry was posted on June 15, 2011. Tags: Computer science, Berkeley