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Computing 101
Intuition, fundamentals, engineering
Harshal G. Hayatnagarkar
Note
All images are used for illustration purpose only. Copyrights are reserved with their respective owners.

What could we cover?
● Nature of computing
● Nature of programming languages, role of compilers/interpreters, etc.
● Advanced concepts in computing
○ Data and task parallel computing
○ Distributed computing
○ Accelerated computing
○ …
○ Science and engineering of computing
○ Computer Hardware and Software engineering
○ Delivery processes
○ Research and Development processes
○ …

Definition of Computing
"In a general way, we can define computing to mean any goal-oriented activity
requiring, benefiting from, or creating computers. Thus, computing includes
designing and building hardware and software systems for a wide range of
purposes; processing, structuring, and managing various kinds of information;
doing scientific studies using computers; making computer systems behave
intelligently; creating and using communications and entertainment media; finding
and gathering information relevant to any particular purpose, and so on. The list is
virtually endless, and the possibilities are vast." - The ACM Computing Curricula
2005 and 2020 (Wikipedia)

"In a general way, we can define computing to mean any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computers. Thus, computing includes
designing and building hardware and software systems for a wide range of purposes; processing, structuring, and managing various kinds of information;
doing scientific studies using computers; making computer systems behave intelligently; creating and using communications and entertainment media;
finding and gathering information relevant to any particular purpose, and so on. The list is virtually endless, and the possibilities are vast." - The ACM
Computing Curricula 2005 and 2020 (Wikipedia)
“A function transforming a structured input into a structured
output by using methods of counting”
f y
x y = f(x)

But before we move on, let’s make a tea first !!

Let’s make some tea...
1. Make tea
2. Serve it
It will make a tea, won’t it?

1. Make tea
2. Serve it
1. Take water
2. Add sugar
3. Add tea powder
4. Boil
5. Serve

1. Make tea
2. Serve it
1. Take water
2. Add sugar
3. Add tea powder
4. Boil
5. Serve
1. Take metal utensil
2. Pour 75ml water into it
3. Add 2 tb of sugar
4. Add 1 ts of tea powder
5. Switch on a stove
burner
6. Put metal utensil on it
7. Let the water boil
8. Switch off the burner
9. Take a tea cup
10. Put a filter on the tea
cup
11. Pour the tea
12. Serve

Making tea seems like an awful amount of work.

Tea, tea, tea !!
● Without sugar
● Black tea
● Black tea with lime
● Black tea with lime and honey
● Tea fusion
● Green tea
● Tapri Chai
● Tapri Chai with Ginger
● Tapri Chai with Ginger and Elaichi
● Masala Chai

Let’s make some tea, coffee, chocolate...
● Beverages for a group of people
○ It’s peak winter. (here is a clue)
○ 2 diabetes friendly cups (hidden knowledge = no sugar)
○ 1 cup for someone with cough and cold (hidden knowledge = with ginger)
○ 1 cup for a child with a sweet tooth (hidden knowledge = chocolate + extra sugar)
○ 1 person is vegan (hidden knowledge = no milk and honey)
○ 1 person is allergic to cocoa (hidden knowledge = chocolate contains cocoa)
● Domain knowledge
○ No milk in green tea
○ No sugar for diabetic people
○ Coffee often does not need filtering
○ Tea bags
○ Vegans prefer non-dairy substitutes

Cooking beyond tea and beverages
● Cuisines: Chinese, Continental, Indian, etc.
● Cuisines as bundles of shared domain knowledge
○ Common ingredients
○ Protocols: Based on external factors such as seasons, people, ceremonies, etc.
○ Processes: Cooking, serving, eating (E.g. soup first and desert last, dal + roti, fork + spoon)
○ Quality control for safety, authentic taste, cleanliness, timeliness, wastage reduction
● All this needs to be described somewhere as manuals of standard
operating procedures so that anyone can follow up

Running a restaurant
● Far more complex than cooking at home
● Waiter’s End: Waiting for customers, arranging a table,
showing menu, suggesting menus, taking an order,
queuing it, delivering it to right table, billing the
customer, quality control, and “Service with a smile”
● Kitchen’s End: Receiving orders, preparing food
(sometimes with customization), collating all items
together, calling waiters, and coordinating with
customers, and quality control
● Warehouse’s End: Planning for raw materials, cold and
regular storage, quality control
● Management’s End: Running the show, tactical and
strategic

Information everywhere...
● Structures and processes
● For example
○ Structure: Order → table #, people, food items, quantity,
customizations),
○ Structure: Menu → Soups, entries, deserts, beverages (hot & cold),
○ Process: Cooking → Ingredients, steps, equipments
○ Process: Pest control → Frequency, before and after steps,
coordination
● Together gives rise to Descriptive Complexity

Tea and the problem of descriptive complexity
● What is a Tea?
● What are types of teas?
● How to make each type of tea?

Descriptive complexity
● Description of structure and processes
○ Variations of types and subtypes
○ Implications of variations
○ Spatial, temporal, and people contexts
○ Tracking defects, improvements, evolution
● Precise with decisions and repetitions
○ If ‘X’ then ‘Y’
○ Do ‘X’ until ‘Y
○ Inferences
● For human and machine actors
○ Human and machine interoperable
○ Interaction protocols: Communication,
coordination, escalation
○ Language for interaction
● Quality

Role of computing
is to explicitly capture
this descriptive complexity.

Descriptive complexity
● Description of structure and processes
○ Variations of types and subtypes → Taxonomy, meronomy, ontologies → Set theory
○ Implications of variations → Causal relationships → Set theory
○ Spatial, temporal, and people contexts → Set theory, linear algebra, dynamical systems, logic
○ Tracking defects, improvements, evolution → Set theory, graph theory, logic
● Precise with decisions and repetitions
○ If ‘X’ then ‘Y’ → Logic (boolean algebra)
○ Do ‘X’ until ‘Y’ → Graph theory
○ Inferences → First order logic, higher order logic
● For human and machine actors
○ Human and machine interoperable
○ Interaction protocols: Communication, coordination, escalation
○ Language for interaction
● Quality

Computing 101 an imperfect introduction to computing using cooking analogy

Parallels between cooking and coding

"In a general way, we can define computing to mean any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computers. Thus, computing includes
designing and building hardware and software systems for a wide range of purposes; processing, structuring, and managing various kinds of information;
doing scientific studies using computers; making computer systems behave intelligently; creating and using communications and entertainment media;
finding and gathering information relevant to any particular purpose, and so on. The list is virtually endless, and the possibilities are vast." - The ACM
Computing Curricula 2005 and 2020 (Wikipedia)
“A function transforming a structured input into a
structured output by using methods of counting”
f y
x y = f(x)

f = recipe y = tea
x = [water,
sugar, tea
powder,
milk]
y = f(x)

f = algorithm
y = output
with
structure
x = input
with
structure
y = f(x)
Structure = Data Structure
Transformation function = Algorithm

Taxonomy = Classification = Object-orientation
Beverages
Hot Cold
Buttermilk
Milkshake
Coffee
Tea
Strawberry
Mango
Green Tea
Ginger Tea Chocolate

Coding some recipes
1. Take metal utensil
2. Pour 75ml water into it
3. Add 1 tb of sugar if not diabetic
4. Add 2 ts of tea powder
5. Switch on a stove burner
6. Put metal utensil on it
7. Let the water boil
8. Switch off the burner
9. Take a tea cup
10.Put a filter on the tea cup
11.Pour the tea
12.Call waiter to serve
If condition
Loop
Function call / delegation
Variable

Programming languages, Compilers, Interpreters

Data Structures: Requirements for Storage and Retrieval

Data Structures: Hierarchical Storage

Modularity, composability, reusability

Application versus Framework versus Library

Patterns, and pattern languages
Cuisine as a pattern language → Cooking, serving, eating
Software patterns → Designing, developing, testing, deploying

Parallel Computing: Task Parallel (Single Core)

Parallel Computing: Data Parallel (Single Core)
Single Instruction Multiple Data
(SIMD)
Observe that
beans are aligned,
and have almost
similar length.
Ditto for vector
processing in
computers where
data should be
byte-aligned and
of similar lengths.

Parallel Computing: Data/Task Parallelism - Multicore

Scaling: Up versus Out
Scale Up
Making a kitchen, bigger
Adding more chefs to a
kitchen
Scale Out
Adding more kitchens

Scaling Hazards: (Too many cooks...)
Communication, Coordination,
Collaboration
→ Race conditions, deadlocks,
overheads

Imagine designing a kitchen/kitchens with 100,000 chefs
What could be the problems?

With scale, everything changes !!

At scale, Cooking Becomes Food Processing

Tasting at scale : Food processing
Implicit model of quality Explicit model of quality

With scale… : Large-scale software deployments

● Safety + Quality + Quantity + Efficiency + Profit is the combined goal.
○ Process matters first and the most.
○ Precision matters next, the second.
○ Automation matters next, the third.
○ Planning and metrics everywhere
● Humans and machines share an environment
Engineering for scale

We live in a data-driven world !

How to differentiate?
Packaging → UI/UX
Nutrients → Business value
Cost → Productivity, efficiency
All of these need R&D !!

R&D Goals
● Innovating products/services
● Improving quality of processes: Safer,
efficient, quicker, less waste, cheaper
● Integrating field experience:
Customer feedback, new trends in
markets, fusion, differentiation
● Process innovation: Take-home, drive
through, online delivery, community
kitchen, donating leftover edible food,
waste disposal
● Trade off assessment: Many v/s fewer
menu items, buffet v/s a la carte, etc.

Technology as a differentiator

Let’s Cook Some Code !!
Thank you !
Questions ?

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Computing 101 an imperfect introduction to computing using cooking analogy

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