Linus Torvalds inspiring department students


Linus Torvalds – alumnus of the department, doctor honoris causa of the University of Helsinki, the best known representative of Finnish computer science internationally – visited the Kumpula campus on 23 October. He answered the questions of students and staff during an informal Q&A session attended by some 300 guests. As the floor was open, and Torvalds emphasized that all questions were welcomed, the queries ranged from extreme to extreme

 -- from the most beautiful code in Linux to the classical conflict between free and open source code.  Torvalds replied: ‘there is very little beautiful code in the core; some of it is downright scary' and ‘the debate is still on-going, but that Torvalds guy won.’

Photo by Millennium Technology Prize / TAF

 

The large auditorium at the department was full and the discussion lively (photo by Tuomas Puikkonen).

Torvalds had nothing but good memories of studying at the Helsinki University Department of Computer Science, where he, according to his own words, was given pretty free reign to work on Linux. He praised the Finnish education system and did not consider the top universities of the world to hold any special advantage over the University of Helsinki. However, he stressed that, if the chance arises, students should visit Stanford or other universities.

Before the session, Linus Torvalds sampled the ambience of the break room (photo by Tuomas Puikkonen).

There is a short (1:06 min) video compilation with subtitles of Linus Torvalds sharing his views on the birth of Linux, programming, and programming languages (video by Sakari Tolppanen, editing by Jaakko Turkka/LUMA centre).

The video of the whole session (83:27 min) is available in the department’s video archive: http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/video/linus-torvalds-qa-session-23rd-oct-2012

Our sincerest thanks for organising the visit go to the awarder of the Millennium Technology Prize, the Technology Academy Finland.
 

 

Created date

21.11.2012 - 15:15

Application to Finnish computer science programmes 16 Mar-6 Apr 2016

 
The joint application to computer science programmes given in Finnish is open now.
 
 

Photo: Veikko Somerpuro 2016

 

International BOI 2016 programming contest at the Department of Computer Science

 

The best young programmers around the Baltic Sea will compete in May 2016 at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki in Baltic Olympiad in Informatics 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

Baltic Olympiad in Informatics (BOI) is a programming contest for countries around the Baltic Sea. The contest has been organized since 1995. This year BOI will take place in Helsinki May 11-15. The contest venue is the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki.

Unique open online programming course starts again at Helsinki University

This is the fifth year in a row that the massive open online course (MOOC) will start at the University of Helsinki. Finns can take the course just for fun, as a part of their upper-secondary education, or even as an entrance exam to the university.

The course is free of charge, and it is so basic that students with no experience of programming can follow it.

Sasu Tarkoma new head of the Department of Computer Science

Since Jukka Paakki announced that he will step down from the post of head of the department on 1 January 2016, Professor Sasu Tarkoma has been elected the new head for the period 1 January 2016-31 December 2017. There were a total of 7 applicants for the position, out of whom the rector decided to appoint Tarkoma on the basis of the proposal by the dean of the Faculty of Science.

The staff of the department would like to congratulate Sasu and wish him success in his new duties. This is a good opportunity to ask our new leader some questions.