Brown Dogs and Barbers: What's Computer Science All About? - Softcover

Computers are everywhere, running our lives, handling our social interactions, serving as the backbone of every business. And yet, how well do we understand them? How much do we know about their rise to ubiquity? We take computers for granted, but there is a fascinating wealth of ideas waiting to be explored, a rich trail of information explaining how we got to where we are now. That trail includes grand dreams, intricate puzzles, mind-stretching concepts and a cast of colourful characters. Brown Dogs and Barbers is a story about computer science. Join me on a journey through the story of computing, discover just what makes the machines tick, learn why computers work the way they do and meet the cast of characters responsible for it all.

Dr. Karl Beecher was born and educated in the UK. His career has taken many twists and turns, but always involved his central passion: computing. He worked as a software engineer before moving into academia to research software evolution and open source software. He was awarded a PhD in computer science from the University of Lincoln in 2009. Soon after, he took up a research post at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. Today, Karl still lives in Berlin and is a co-founder of Endocode, a software startup company. He blogs at www.computerfloss.com and tweets under the name @karlbeecher.