The public image of computer science does not reflect its true nature. The general public and especially high school students identify computer science with a computer driving license. They think that studying computer science is not a challenge, and that anybody can learn it. Computer science is not considered a scientific discipline but a collection of computer usage skills. This is a consequence of the misconception that teaching computer science is important because almost everybody possesses a computer. The software industry also behaved in a short-sighted manner, by putting too much pressure on training people in the use of their specific software products,
Searching for a way out, ETH Zurich offered a public lecture series called The Open Class — Seven Wonders of Informatics in the fall of 2005. The lecture notes of this first Open Class were published in German by Teubner in 2006. Ten lectures of this Open Class form the basis of Algorithmic Adventures.
