# Questions tagged [soft-question]

A soft question is a question (possibly subjective) about the field of theoretical computer science as opposed to being a question in theoretical computer science.

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### What are the criteria for inviting conference papers (e.g. SODA) for special issue?

This is mostly for some immigration related document that I am trying to write and want to reference an online link which mentions that only a select few papers are invited for special issue for SODA ...
1k views

### Turing award papers

I was wondering if there are individual publications that have led their authors to win the Turing Prize or if the Turing Prize is the result of a lifetime's work and multiple publications and results....
166 views

I'm a first year PhD student in a CS department at what some would probably consider a mid-tier university. I've been reading from Vershynin's High-Dimensional Probability and been trying to learn ...
140 views

### Are patents good sources for academic research?

I'm a freshman Master's student in Computer Science and I need to write a paper for my Operating System class. While looking through research articles using google scholar I found that a lot results ...
120 views

### Quantum advantage beyond the black-box model

Question Aaronson wrote in his thesis that “essentially all quantum algorithms that we know today—from Shor’s algorithm, as discussed previously, to Grover’s algorithm, to the quantum adiabatic ...
192 views

### Site with collection of exercises in TCS?

Is there a website with a large collection of exercises for theoretical computer science, sorted by topics? I know that many exercises can be found in different textbooks, I'm looking for an online ...
316 views

### How to efficiently read the theoretical computer science research papers?

I am a computer science graduate student works in theory. The general advice is to go through the paper and then in the second or third round try to understand the detail. Read the abstract, ...
111 views

### Book recommendation treewidth

I am searching for a good book (or survey paper) on treewidth. I would be delighted if the book/paper surveys multiple approaches to treewidth (eg: structural, algorithmic, `language-theoretic') and ...
167 views

### Tortoise and hare algorithms

Consider the problem: Given an array $a[0..n]$ where $n\ge 1$ and $a[i]\in [n]$ for all $i=0,\ldots,n$ find two indices $s\neq t$ so that $a[s] = a[t]$. This problem has a stunning solution running ...
210 views

### How far has computer science moved past Knuth's TAoCP, if at all? [closed]

The seminal book The Art of Computer Programming got its start in 1968. I have been finding references to it in many literature reviews, apparently there are many problems for which a review by Knuth ...
122 views

### Is Combinatory Logic (CL) still relevant for programming language theory?

I've been reading up on R. Smullyan's "To Mock a Mockingbird" and Hindley's "Lambda-Calculus and Combinators: An Introduction". I've even read Schonfinkel's 1924 paper introducing the idea of ...
608 views

### What is the “question” that programming language theory is trying to answer?

I've been interested in various topics like Combinatory Logic, Lambda Calculus, Functional Programming for a while and have been studying them. However, unlike the "Theory of Computation" which ...
5k views

### Single author papers against my advisor's will?

I am a third year PhD student in an area of theoretical CS that would like advice for a difficult situation with my advisor. My advisor is not involved in my research projects at all. In particular, ...
393 views

### What type of mathematical problems interesting for TCS researchers?

I am Ph.D student (about to graduate) in TCS. I have worked on some problems. I have been able to publish few research paper. There are many research problems in mathematics as well in TCS. I am sure ...
201 views

### What are CS blogs for puzzles/games?

I am looking for blogs which contains recent progress on puzzles/games (Algebraic and Combinatorial) etc. like Soduko, latin square etc. I come across a list on TCS What CS blogs should everyone read?,...
209 views

### Where do people publish/submit their work on type theory?

Besides the most common venues (perhaps POPL, ICFP, LICS and FSCD), where else are papers on type theory commonly published? Especially, I'm looking for more "pure mathematical" venues/journals which ...
551 views

### Feel dissatisfied after each submission

I am a third year graduate student at a "top-20" university who works on fine-grained complexity (lots of playing with 3-SUM, OV and the usual popular hardness conjectures). I have been fairly ...
1k views

### What to do as a Theoretical computer science PhD student in a free time?

I am a mid-stage theoretical computer science student. Although I have a busy schedule, I still have a one or one a half hour in a day which I devote to reading and solving the question given Jeff ...
368 views

### Is getting post-doc difficult in theoretical computer science with few published papers? [closed]

I am a Ph.D student ( expected to graduate in few months ) works in computational mathematics. In my PhD, I have published just couple of research papers. I am willing to go for a post-doc( US, Europe,...
248 views

### Graduate school for CS theory?

I am currently studying a bachelor's in (joint honours) Mathematics and Computer Science in the UK. I am intrigued by the sorts of problems present in theoretical computer science and I want to ...
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### Cryptography protocols using graph problem instances

I personally am only aware of basic examples of public key cryptography and I haven't studied cryptography yet. I'm curious if there are circumstances in cryptography where using problem instances ...
91 views

### Naming an algorithm after a copyrighted object

In machine learning, it is common to give algorithms quirky names. What happens if you think you've found a name that's actually quite fitting for an algorithm (catchy, descriptive, etc) -- but turns ...
818 views

### The TOC Blog Aggregator is Offline

I apologise if this is off-topic. It seems that the domain name has expired. I hope some member(s) of the community here (I am not one) may know who was the administrator/owner of that site. It was ...
137 views

### How to write algorithms?

Reading research articles in theoretical computer science, I noticed that people often describe their algorithms in an enumerative way (i.e., they enumerate the steps of their algorithm and use "go to"...
679 views

### How to talk about theory

I realize this might be a contentious question, but this seemed like the right place to ask. Please redirect me if not. The background is that I am a "practitioner" (PhD student, I don't study CS ...
169 views

### Relatively low ambitious frontiers

What are some of the current "relatively" low ambitious frontiers for MA/PhD thesis in complexity theory class separations/containment or quantum computing? For example: In the draft version of Arora ...
208 views

### Automated theorem proving PhD

I'm looking for a university where I can do doctoral studies in automated theorem proving / computational algebra. Any ideas? Thank you!
154 views

### What is the etiquette of naming concepts after people?

There is a concept introduced by other researchers that I use in my work, and IMO it is appropriate to rename it to honor the inventors. Is it considered normal to just go ahead and name it like that ...
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### Is it a bad idea to critique someone's paper in my first publication?

I am currently facing a situation that I am not sure how to handle. Basically, there is this problem $A$. Problem $A$ has been a hot topic in the past $5$ years. Last year, a paper was published in ...
72 views

### Soft Truth Values in the PSL model

This might sound like a trivial question. But since am starting out with my research in an area that is entirely new to me, I would really appreciate it if someone could kindly elucidate what Soft ...
457 views

What do you think about regularly reading papers outside one's own field, even those which are not related to his area? My intuition is that it can give a totally different perspective or technique ...
269 views

### Algebraic topology for termination proofs

I'm reading about various ways in which termination proofs of software verifiers are built: ad-hoc methods that detect recursions, term-rewriting, synthesis of lexicographic orderings... From the ad-...
318 views

### Algorithms with run-time $O(n\log \log n)$ [closed]

I am looking for the list of problems with runtime $O(n\log \log n)$, where $n$ is the size of the input. I tried to search on internet but did not able to find any.