Home again, 2/9/15

And mighty happy to be home, yes indeedy.

Something that I was just thinking about here.  I saw on a website where someone believes that truth tables are not being taught anymore.  Well, I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is, it is really bad news.  That's because truth tables are part of computer science 101.  It is very basic stuff for those of us who work with computers.  If you don't know truth tables, you really don't know how computers work.

What is that you say?  Well, computers are based upon logic.  Everything that takes place inside a computer involves the electrical representation of the numbers 0 and 1.  These are designated as false and true respectively.  It so happens that you can construct the entire machine around that very fact.  That's how they did it.  If you don't know that, how can you know how a computer works?  It's why it was in computer science 101, and I know, because I was a computer science major.

Now, if they don't teach this anymore to computer science majors, then they aren't teaching them anything at all.  It's like teaching auto mechanics to somebody without showing them the difference between water and gasoline.  If you don't know the difference, then how can you know how a car works?  Truth tables are to computers what gasoline is to cars.  Or to put it more exactly, the knowledge of gasoline is to cars what the knowledge of truth tables are to computers.  It's what runs the show.

So, if they aren't teaching this to computer science students, it's like teaching auto mechanics to somebody without telling them that they need gasoline to run an engine.  If you don't know that you need gasoline to run your car, you are in a bit of trouble.  Although you can certainly drive a car without knowing anything about gasoline, it might be better if you did know a little about it.  Like, don't throw gasoline on a fire, for example.

In the case of computers, you might want to remember to keep the thing plugged in.  Once it loses power, it can lose everything in its "memory".  That "memory" depends upon logic, which in turn depend upon truth tables.  Someone may ask the question, without knowing this fact, that computers should be able to retain their memory even if you turn it off.  Some of them do, sure.  But how do they do that?  It's all related to logic, electricity, and some engineering.  But without the logic, the electricity would be useless.

You have to know that in order to know how your computer works.  It's not necessary for everybody to know, but if nobody knows, you've got big problems.