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Most viral Computer Science questions on Quora

Ranked by real engagement we track — views, upvotes, comments and shares per question. Updated continuously.

1.1KQuestions tracked

57.8MTotal views

750.7KTotal upvotes

8.4MVirality score

[A2A] Is a 2.7 GPA at MIT for CS bad? Bad for whom? Bad in what way? Obviously, a 2.7 GPA from MIT is “worse” than a 5.0 GPA* from MIT, but “better” than a 2…

🔥 449.9K 👁 4.4M ⬆ 2.7K 💬 84 🔄 36 · Anonymous on Quora

2 How does a programmer think?

🔥 158.8K 👁 646.7K ⬆ 29K 💬 312 🔄 159 · Anonymous on Quora

3 Do you think Bjarne Stroustrup knows the entire C++ language or does he have to refer back to his own book?

I feel I am uniquely qualified to answer this question! :) It was 1986, and I was working at AT&T Bell Labs. Our department was only the second in the entire…

🔥 130.1K 👁 780.7K ⬆ 15.7K 💬 0 🔄 193 · Anonymous on Quora

4 How complicated is the code for Microsoft Windows?

🔥 129.7K 👁 836K ⬆ 13.2K 💬 264 🔄 159 · Anonymous on Quora

5 Who are/were some of the most badass computer programmers?

🔥 124.4K 👁 600.6K ⬆ 19.2K 💬 315 🔄 145 · Anonymous on Quora

6 What is one random thing you know about a computer that most people don’t?

🔥 118.3K 👁 479.2K ⬆ 19.9K 💬 297 🔄 309 · Sara Vogel on Quora

7 I got a CS in IIT Delhi and an MBBS in Haldwani Medical College. Which should I choose?

I am a Surgeon with 14 years into this field. Being a doctor is not at all a big thing. Definitely lot of hard work. But most doctors have a very pathetic li…

🔥 113.7K 👁 1.1M ⬆ 699 💬 133 🔄 10 · Anonymous on Quora

8 How hard do MIT students study?

🔥 112.3K 👁 803.8K ⬆ 9.5K 💬 42 🔄 118 · Vishavanath Bhaurule on Quora

9 How did the founder of Linux write 18 million lines of code alone?

The kernel is closer to 12 million lines of code; so I don’t know where you’re getting your figure of 18 million. Linus Torvalds, the founder of the Linux pr…

🔥 107.5K 👁 760.9K ⬆ 10.1K 💬 73 🔄 11 · Anonymous on Quora

10 What are the main differences between a Masters and a PhD in computer science?

The best answer I've seen to this question is by Prof. Matthew Might on his blog. Like many great answers, it uses pictures (taken from The illustrated guide…

🔥 104.8K 👁 643.9K ⬆ 12.3K 💬 81 🔄 104 · Anonymous on Quora

11 Why doesn't Minecraft lag more? It's got ~4.8 billion lines of code, so why can it run so fast?

When Minecraft loads, it displays an amusing splash message in yellow, at the top right of the screen. One of them is “4815162342 Lines of Code!”It’s a joke.…

🔥 104.4K 👁 766.2K ⬆ 8.7K 💬 125 🔄 18 · Anonymous on Quora

12 Who is the best programmer: Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison or Linus Torvalds? Why?

Today? Linus Torvalds, hands down. Jeff Bezos is not a programmer. Larry Ellison is not really a programmer, he did write some mainframe code when he was in…

🔥 103.7K 👁 757.7K ⬆ 9.2K 💬 27 🔄 2 · Anonymous on Quora

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13 I want to major in computer science. Can I get a brutally honest opinion on this major?

14 Is Knuth’s "The Art of Computer Programming" a good book for a basic/intermediate programmer?

15 Who wrote the Google Search algorithm?

16 Can a Linux OS be as stable as macOS for programming?

17 What would happen if a supercomputer calculated pi out and discovered that it does end finitely?

18 What stops the robot from clicking the “I'm not a robot” button?

19 What are some things that programmers and computer scientists know, but most people don't?

20 How would the CLRS authors fare in TopCoder against people like Gennady Korotkevich (Competitive Programmer)?

21 Is Tesla Linux-based?

22 How has teaching computer science changed since 1984?

23 How do I plan and complete reading "Introduction to Algorithms" and implement a decent number of algorithms within a period of one month?

24 Just like Larry Page and Sergey Brin unseated their incumbents with a better search engine, how likely is it that two Computer Science PhD students create a search engine that unseats Google? How vulnerable is Google to this possibility?

25 Why do computer science people get annoyed when someone asks, "Can you fix my computer?"

26 Why was Edsger Dijkstra so cool?

27 Why do IT jobs pay so well when it's really not that difficult and doesn't require much education?

28 How do you make a program that generates Fibonacci numbers and displays the first ten numbers?

29 Is getting a PhD in computer science beneficial to a software engineer?

30 How difficult is video game programming?

31 Why is it hard to scale a database, in layman’s terms?

32 What are the best photos on your phone that only a computer science student would understand?

33 Which is the most astonishing piece of code you've ever seen in your life?

34 What are the best screenshots you have on your phone that only computer scientists/CS students would understand?

35 What's the best way to explain big-O notation in laymen's terms?

36 Why isn't the famous "Introduction to Algorithms" by CLRS available for free?

37 Is MIT’s computer science program really better than Stanford or Berkeley, or is it just east coast bias and hyper-fastidious analysis? I mean, cal and Stanford practically built Silicon Valley and the modern economy. What has MIT done?

38 Is Linux written with less code than Windows NT?

39 Who is Anuj Dhawan and why is he so famous in IITD CS branch?

40 What type of people work in the IT industry?

41 What advice does Thomas Cormen have for a computer science undergrad in his freshman year?

42 Is there a PDF version of Algorithms Unlocked by Thomas Cormen?

43 Are you expected to write the perfect code on your first attempt in tech interviews?

44 Can a NIT student can get a 1 crore per annum salary in computer science?

45 Why is Introduction to Algorithms the most recommended book on algorithms?

46 Why is it preferable to implement O(n^2) over O(n) to solve the same problem?

47 How do computer science graduates feel when self taught programmers get jobs so easily?

48 If I ever choose to enroll in an average university, how can I cope with the difference in quality between my less known university and the more prestigious ones in computer science?

49 What was the highest package a Computer Science M.Tech from an IIT got this year?

50 Is Imitation Game a factually correct movie about Alan Turing?

51 Why do you use Linux?

52 If you had a 1,000 pixel by 1,000 pixel display, and every second each pixel randomly was either black or white, would the display appear grey?

53 Is Steve Wozniak overrated?

54 What is the most difficult concept to grasp in computer science?

55 How fast do programmers really code? Is it as fast as we see in the movies? Is that possible?

56 Why is Linux so complicated?

57 How do search engines work? They cannot store the whole internet. Can they?

58 What caused the millennium (Y2K) bug back in 1999/2000? What types of computers could have been affected by it?

59 Why is Moore's law dead?

60 What did Alan Kay mean by, "Lisp is the greatest single programming language ever designed"?

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