The blossoming of computer science (CS) research is evident in the information technology that has migrated from a specialized tool confined to the laboratory or corporate back office to a ubiquitous presence in machines and devices that now figure in the lives of virtually every individual. This widespread diffusion of information technology can obscure the nature of computer science research underlying the IT— from the perspective of many outside the field, computer science is seen not as a basic area of systematic inquiry but as a tool to support other endeavors
