Unit 1: Computers and language

Points for discussion:

• In what contexts does written language occur on a PC?
• What aspects of language are treated by a word processor?
• With respect to the term `word processor', who and what actually does which kinds of processing?
• What is a `programming language'? Look for names and short descriptions of particular programming languages.
• What are the main differences between programming languages and natural written language, or between programmes and natural written text?
• Can computers think?
• Do computers have knowledge?
• Do computers contain information?
• Do computers have emotions?
• Do computers have a personality?
• Do computers have brains?
• Do computers have a mind?
• Is the web an organism?
• What does it meant to call a computer stupid, clever, slow, unreliable, unpredictable ... ?
• If a computer doesn't work, whose fault is it?
• Is a computer an instrument or tool? If not, how would you categorise it? If so, what other instruments or tools would you say it is similar to?
• Hardware: What hardware components does a computer have?
• Software: What software components does a computer have?
• What is a computer?
• What is the web?

Practical tasks:

• Search the web (here is the fancy graphic version of the search engine page) for information about
  • newspapers such as The Guardian, The International Herald Tribune, Die Zeit,
  • or for introductions to logic.
• Try some other search engines and web guides, such as the following collection (taken from the Netscape Navigator Directory function):

  SEARCH ENGINES	AltaVista AOL NetFind Electric Library: Mags & Newspapers HOTBOT TABNet: Domain Name Search WebCrawler
  WEB GUIDES	Excite Infoseek LookSmart Lycos SEARCH.COM DISCOVER WiseWire.com Yahoo!

• Which search engines have you used, and how do they differ from each other?
• What is the best time of day to use the web, and why?