
Get started with computer science papers - devupio
https://developer.sh/posts/computer-science-papers
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bobbiechen
_> Reading white papers is a skill in its own, but as almost anything else, it
can be learnt._

I'm currently taking this great course [1] with Dave O'Hallaron (co-author of
Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective / the 213 textbook [2]), in which
we read and discuss papers about building scalable Internet services (list of
papers available on the site).

As part of the course we write critiques of each paper, including a quick
summary and some notes about likes, dislikes, and questions for discussion.
Taking the time to write this out explicitly really forces me to think more
deeply about what each paper is about.

And, the reading-group format with discussion with other people is helpful -
hearing different perspectives and opinions really improves my understanding
as well.

I'd definitely recommend taking notes and trying to find a reading group for
better understanding. As other comments have mentioned, Adrian Colyer's The
Morning Paper [3] also has interesting reads.

[1] [http://course.ece.cmu.edu/~ece845/](http://course.ece.cmu.edu/~ece845/)

[2] [http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/](http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu/)

[3] [https://blog.acolyer.org/](https://blog.acolyer.org/)

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vearwhershuh
Always worth reading through all the Worse Is Better essays:

[https://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html](https://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html)

Good example of someone who is smarter than you, dear reader, and can argue
either side of a technical argument convincingly, even to himself.

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macintux
I’ll add the obvious: [https://blog.acolyer.org/](https://blog.acolyer.org/)

And my own meta-list of distributed systems reading lists. Old links, no
shortage of caveats left as an exercise for the reader.

[https://gist.github.com/macintux/6227368](https://gist.github.com/macintux/6227368)

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non-entity
I always wish I could read research papers and get anything interesting out of
them, but 9/10 I lack any of the prerequisite knowledge to understand anything
I read.

~~~
convolvatron
I'm old enough to admit this....I don't actually dig into the papers very
deeply, unless I have the prerequisite background.

if its close enough to my area, I can usually get a lot out of reading the
exposition, skipping the parts that don't make any sense to me (especially the
math).

I suppose it's like eating salt crackers with powdered iced tea at a Michelin
restaurant...but I've still learned a lot.

if you float an area you're interested in, I'm sure people would be happy to
give recommendations. a lot of the more influential CS papers are not only
novel and interesting, but also very accessible. (I guess except paxos...once
you boil away all the stuff its really simple underneath)

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azhenley
I wrote a similar post but focused on the human factors of software
engineering for grad students:

[http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/guidehciseresearch.html](http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/guidehciseresearch.html)

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Pmop
Suggestion: remove 'quarantine' off submission's title.

~~~
opk
It gets pointlessly added in lots of places nowadays. Does anyone here even
have more free time due to the lockdown? IT work is fairly conducive to being
done from home. And given that we end up supporting other staff, I've been
really busy this past few weeks.

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Rerarom
Better read math, much more interesting than CS.

