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Simply Scheme: Introducing Computer Science
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For those not familiar with the history of this discussion, the term "parse" here is being used in its strict sense to mean static parsing -- taking a piece of code and determining its structure without executing it. In that strict sense the Perl program does not parse Perl. As Jeffrey pointed out it means that you can't reliably parse perl code without executing it. This means that things like static code analysis, code transformation and syntax hilighting will never be reliable. This is a drawback indeed, but on the other hand it means that modules can extend Perl's syntax, and that other nifty stuff can be accomplished. So I understand this node as a proof of a property that is seldom fully understood.

[ UPDATE 14 Aug 2009: A series of three articles in The Perl Review, now available online, expands on this node. In that series, the proof is carefully laid out in three different versions, and is much more thoroughly explained. ]

I've tried to span as many subjects as possible to have a little something for everyone while limiting myself to foundational papers that have had a lasting impact on the field and are also highly readable. Some of the people (Chomsky, Shannon, Metropolis, Ulam) represented here might not consider themselves computer scientists but the papers I've included have been so important that they cannot be left out. I admit a few papers may seem like idiosyncratic picks due to my particular interest in certain areas like computer graphics and computational dynamics. There are several important papers I couldn't include due to an absence of freely available copies, e.g. Rissanen's Generalized Kraft Inequality and Arithmetic Coding.

I am looking for something clever or thought provoking that doesn't depend on too much background knowledge, and is easy to read without too much formalism/maths.

Recommender a compsci paper for me to read this weekend

by Bjarne Stroustrup

What Should We Teach New Software Developers? Why? | January 2010 | Communications of the ACM

Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fcacm.acm.org%2Fmagazines%2F2010%2F1%2F55760-what-should-we-teach-new-software-developers-why%2Ffulltext