The papers assembled in this volume were presented at COMPSTAT 1988, the 8th biannual Symposium in Computational Statistics held under the auspices of the International Association for Statistical Computing. The current impact of computers on the theory and practice of statistics can be traced at many levels: on one level, the ubiquitous personal computer has made methods for explorative data analysis and display, rarely even described in conventional statistics textbooks, widely available. At another level, advances in computing power permit the development and application of statistical methods in ways that previously have been infeasible. Some of these methods, for example Bayesian methods, are deeply rooted in the philosophical basis of statistics, while others, for example dynamic graphics, present the classical statistical framework with quite novel perspectives. The contents of this volume provide a cross-section of current concerns and interests in computational statistics. A dominating topic is the application of artificial intelligence to statistics (and vice versa), where systems deserving the label expert systems are just beginning to emerge from the haze of good intentions with which they hitherto have been clouded. Other topics that are well represented include: nonparametric estimation, graphical techniques, algorithmic developments in all areas, projection pursuit and other computationally intensive methods. COMPSTAT symposia have been held biannually since 1974. This tradition has made COMPSTAT a major forum for advances in computational statistics with contributions from many countries in the world. Two new features have been introduced at COMPSTAT ‘88.