| This post was kindly contributed by The SAS Dummy - go there to comment and to read the full post. |
I helped to write a quiz for the Computer Science Education Week promotions that were featured on our company intranet. Do you fancy yourself as a Comp-Sci aficionado? Let’s see how you do with these.
1. Which achievement is Charles Babbage most famous for?
- Establishing software retail shops in shopping malls across America
- Inventing a strategic card game that involves using pegs to keep score
- As one of the “fathers” of the programmable computer
- Earning an all-time high score while playing Mafia Wars
2. Early computer programs and data were originally recorded on what storage device?
- Iomega “Zip” drives
- 8″ floppy disks
- Punched cards
- 8-track cassette tapes
3. Which of the following is NOT a computer programming language?
- Lisp
- Python
- Ruby
- Simba
- SAS
4. Within a computer program, a function that can invoke itself again as part of doing its work is known as:
- recalcitrant
- recursive
- redundant
- repulsive
- a stack overflow exception
5. In a computer program, a variable that simply holds the memory address of another variable or data structure is called:
- a memory leak
- a pointer variable
- a linked list
- an address box
Answers:
1: (c). Charles Babbage is known as a pioneer in the concept of a programmable computer, even though he lived long before the technology to build modern computers was invented. Source: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage)
2: (c). Punched cards have been around since the earliest “computing machines”. Beginning in the 1960s, magnetic tape and other storage devices began to replace punched cards for data storage. Source: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card)
3: (d). At the time of this writing, there is no computer programming language named “Simba”…but it’s probably just a matter of time. The most popular active programming languages are tracked at the TIOBE Programming Community Index (http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html). The SAS programming language is currently at number 18 on the index.
4: (b): “Recursive” is the most correct answer here, but unless used with extreme care, any of the other answers might be the result.
5: (b): A pointer variable (or pointer, for short). Pointers are common in some programming languages, such as C and C++, where they are usually essential for memory-efficient operations. Those who work with higher-level languages such as Java, C#, or even SAS don’t encounter pointers nearly as often (the lucky stiffs).
| This post was kindly contributed by The SAS Dummy - go there to comment and to read the full post. |