Why Geeks, aka Computer Scientists, Should Write (Week #3)

Writing is a great skill for any person to have and is of great importance in computer science. It's a skill that can be greatly overlooked because people may assume that computer scientists don't need it as much as they would need to know how to program, or they would need to know math. Writing can improve your understanding of a problem to come up with a solution, and will allow you effectively communicate this solution with other people. These things will award you with future success in computer science.

Being able to write well can greatly improve your own understanding of a problem you may be experiencing. As a computer scientist you need to solve problems, and to solve problems you need to keep track of your ideas in order to come up with a solution. Your problems could be having trouble understanding a certain concept, or having trouble programming something. By writing out your thoughts, you will have a visual representation of what you are thinking. You can always revisit that thought later, rather than have it lost in your head. When you look at a visual representation of these thoughts you can understand exactly what you have to do in order to improve upon your current situation and come up with a solution for it. You can also reflect upon the entire process to see what you have got out of the experience.

If you now understand fully the problem you may have, and the idea you've come up with in order to solve it, you can now communicate this with another person. Writing is also very important in transferring your ideas to someone else because if you are unable to write out clear, concise thoughts, the other person will not understand what you are trying to say. If no one else seems to understand the idea, then your idea will have absolutely no value to it. In computer science, an example could be writing a program. If no one else understands what exactly it does, then no one would use it. They may not be interested or sold on an idea that doesn't make sense to them. However, if you are able to explain your solution out clearly they will also understand you and this would give value to your idea.

Writing is something everyone needs to be able to do. It will make sure you have a clear thought and idea and allow you to effectively transfer that to someone else and these two things are of great importance in computer science.