r/AskComputerScience

I have a class that requires me to ask it questions and relay the response. That's pretty much all I use it for. One time, though, I asked it an unrelated question and it included in its answer that I might want to format things a certain way because "that's usually what professors expect".

I have a basic understanding of LLMs. In particular, I understand that they don't actually retain any information, and have to process the entire conversation in order to predict the next word each time. How, then, did it connect my question to the fact that I'm a student? Was it just a lucky "guess"? Does it save context from previous conversations into system prompts that are used in each new conversation or something? That seems complicated and inefficient if so.

Hi, hope this question is OK for this sub.

I’m an undergraduate studying pure maths at a uni which has undergraduate compsci program geared for software engineering. As a result, there is sparingly little theory taught. I’ve been enamoured with the ideas of complexity classes and problem reductions since learning about them in high school.

Which textbooks do you recommend for self-learning the basics of theoretical computer science? What about more advanced textbooks?

Are there any relatively accessible papers for an undergrad to read to learn about the field?

Some follow up questions (I hope these are OK!)

Is it common/feasible to study mathematics in a bachelors/masters and go on to do computer science research? Say, in a phd or beyond.

What sort of mathematics do TCS people use? (Maybe this differs across subfields, but, for example, I know that the physics guys at my uni like Lie groups a lot)

Thanks so much :)

Hi everyone,

I’m a software engineer who recently transitioned into a role working on media playback for embedded systems and smart TVs.

To clarify my scope, I am strictly working at the software/application layer. I am not designing the firmware or working on the hardware, but I’d like to not treat it as a “black box.”

I’m trying to understand the fundamental architecture of the playback pipeline: how a manifest is read, buffering, demuxing, passing bits to hardware decoders, and rendering to the screen (and anything else I may have missed)

The problem is, I feel like I’ve read a ton of documentation and resources, but the concepts are still incredibly foreign to me. I’m having a really hard time building a solid mental model of how all these moving parts connect.

Any advice on the best pedagogical approach to learning about media processing pipelines? Is there a standard university textbook, a specific project based course, or a teaching method that makes these concepts click? How is this typically taught at the graduate level to engineers? I only did my undergrad and this unfortunately was something we never touched on. Thank you in advance!

Textbooks I’ve come across so far, but have struggled to get past the first few chapters:

Video Demystified by Keith Jack

How Video Works by Marcus Weise and Diana Weynand

The Art of Digital Video by John Watkinson

Embedded media processing by David Katz

TTL SSI come mostly in 14-pin 1C packages. Two pins are reserved for power

supply and the other pins are used for input and output terminals. How many

circuits are included in one such package if it contains the following type of cir-

cuits? (a) Inverters; (b) two-input exclusive-OR gates; (c) three-input OR gates;

(d) four-input AND gates; (e) five-input NOR gates; (f) eight-input NAND gates;

(g) clocked JK flip-flops with asynchronous clear.

I'm a high school student studying networks for AS Level Computer Science (although what I'm asking is a little outside the syllabus).

From what I've read, layer 4 splits and encapsulates the data with a segment header (in practice, I hear they use TCP, a type of protocol for this layer). The segment header contains many things, but namely a segment number so that a device like a router can reorganize the data into the correct order. However, I've been taught that packets also have packet numbers which functionally do the same thing – help the router organize the data.

So, why do segments have a segment number? If segments are already encapsulated with an IP header that contains the packer number in layer 3, then wouldn't the segment number just be unnecessary? I'm not sure what I'm missing.

As in, basis of a vector space. In this case with dimension 1.

What are the differences?

I'm an econ student with little to no background in CS/coding. Recently I've been self-learning R for research roles. I want to build a sort of portfolio where I can showcase my work and the skills I have. It's more so that I can prove I can work with the data since I have no formal training in it. I have some questions regarding that:

1. I heard github is a good place to build a portfolio? So should I build my portfolios in github or would it be an overkill since I'm not in the CS field?

2. What are alternative ways to showcase my work?

Thank you!!

sometimes i practice and learn the next day I don't know why I am unable to do it.

in my college I have done projects completely based on python-AI/ML.

as a fresher which language is best

I am not graduated yet, and want to prepare

It can’t be true, our brain seems vastly superior to any other organ of any other organism on Earth and the universe, it is vastly more capable, adaptive and creative. I doubt that neural networks are even capable of forming concepts that we do, they are forever “cognitively locked” from grasping the truths that we grasp

I am studying and this excerpt from the study guide I was given isn't matching up with some of my other sources. Could someone please verify if any of this is correct/misleading? For instance, it says paging divides virtual memory and physical memory into pages, but isnt physical memory divided into frames?

Excerpt:

"Virtual RAM: also known as virtual memory, is a memory management technique used by operating systems to extend the apparent amount of RAM available to applications. This is done by using a portion of a computer's storage (such as an SSD or HDD) to simulate additional RAM.

Paging: The operating system divides physical memory and virtual memory into small fixed-sized blocks called pages. When the system runs out of physical RAM, it can swap inactive pages to the storage device, freeing up RAM for active processes.

Pagefile/Swap Space: On Windows systems, this is often referred to as a pagefile, while on Unix-like systems, it is called swap space. This file or partition on the storage device is used to store pages that are moved out of physical RAM.

Address Translation: The CPU uses a memory management unit (MMU) to translate virtual addresses (used by programs) into physical addresses (used by the hardware). This allows applications to use more memory than is physically available."

hey so I'm a first year computer science student and wanted to ask you guys , after you finished your first year in cs what's the level you were in like knowledge, coding..etc

i was reading about vpn architectures and it seemed straightforward at first, traffic goes through provider, provider routes it, claims no logs, done

but then i realized that routing still means visibility exists, and if visibility exists then logging is always possible even if not used

so the real issue is not logging… it is visibility

and now i am not sure how many systems actually remove that

What is the best approach for the database design for the applications ,i will be building for my future SaaS business.
There are many SaaS agencies ,how they handle database, does they create database for every client or follows Multitenant architecture or something else.

Seperete db for every client is not an option for me

Different schema for every services but a single schema for every tenant having same shared database, i dont know if this is flexible or not.

And seperate db for every microservice ,idk it would be complex

I wanna build a scalable ,flexible architecture for just 100-500 clients, and the services I provide will be similar but the schema can change according to clients.

And I dont have that much knowledge about the Database architecture.

Any suggestions about efficient way to design db, tools and tech will help me a lot
Thank you.

I've noticed this on both Windows and Linux. If I enter the correct password, it almost instantly starts the login. But if it's the wrong password it takes like a second or so to tell me it's wrong.

I've been learning about modern cpu microarchitecture recently and about how the backend out-of-order multi-issue data-latched prefetched branch-predicted etc execution pipeline works, and the idea of a declarative language on top of a vliw isa seems to me like it would give the best opportunities for compiletime optimization and runtime ilp, along with inherent thread safety if it were also a pure functional language

My knowledge of all these things is pretty shallow however, so I dont actually know if something like this is a sound idea, and since i dont know much about what modern research conclusions in isa and cpu design look like (though i would guess that it leans more towards increased heterogeny rather than trying to fill an individual general purpose chip with lots of disparate and specialized circuitry), I would appreciate any knowledge or insight into what the current thinking looks like