| Information Science and Digital Technology form an immensely complex
and wide subject that extends from social implications of technological
development to deep mathematical foundations of the techniques
that make this development possible. This puts very high demands
on the education of computer science and engineering. To be an efficient
engineer working either on basic research problems or immediate
applications, one needs to have, in addition to social skills, a solid understanding
of the foundations of information and computer technology.
A difficult dilemma in designing courses or in education in general is to
balance the level of abstraction with concrete case studies and practical
examples.
In the education of mathematical methods, it is possible to start with
abstract concepts and often quite quickly develop the general theory to
such a level that a large number of techniques that are needed in practical
applications emerge as ”simple” special cases. However, in practice, this
is seldom a good way to train an engineer or researcher because often the
knowledge obtained in this way is fairly useless when one tries to solve
concrete problems. The reason, in our understanding, is that without
the drill of working with concrete examples, the human mind does not
develop the ”feeling” or intuitive understanding of the theory that is
necessary for solving deeper problems where no recipe type solutions are
available.
In this book, we have aimed at finding a good balance between the
economy of top-down approach and the benefits of bottom-up approach.
From our teaching experience, we know that the best balance varies
from student to student and the construction of the book should allow a
selection of ways to balance between abstraction and concrete examples. |
