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meaning - Augmentation in Computer Science


How would you define augmentation in terms of Computer Science?


I've heard it used as ‘strengthening’:



“In jQuery, you design a page, and then you make it dynamic. This is because jQuery was designed for augmentation...)”



or as ‘extension’:



“I heard about cases where adding an extra requirement to a binary search (for example) can be called augmentation.”



A Google search for ‘augmentation computer science’ brings up a Stack Overflow question, but that's for quite a specific context. Wikipedia defines Augmentation for numerous disciplines but not for Computer Science.


There are lots of examples if you search for augmentation on programmers.SE. I had asked this question on programmers.SE - but was pointed here instead.



Answer



Augmentation means the same thing in computer science as it does in general English, which I would summarise as: extending something to make it better.


Oxford Dictionaries Online gives this definition for the verb augment:



Pronunciation: /ɔːgˈmɛnt/



  • make (something) greater by adding to it; increase



There are some particular uses of augment which have become terms in their own right and imply a more specific meaning based on the general one; for example, augmented reality, augmenting path, graph augmentation, augmented data structure.


In the context of a particular sub-field (for example, graph theory) or even a particular algorithm, the term augmentation may take on a more specialised and well-defined meaning, but in computer science as a whole, the meaning of augmentation is not specialised.


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