Finite Automata and the Theory of Computation.
Lots of Turing Machines and constructing proofs. I'm not sure I would have passed if it wasn't for my friend who worked with me on the homework.
Ask HN: What is the most challenging programming course you have taken?
31–40 of 83 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the most challenging programming course you have taken?
#32got a book Low Level Programming by igor zhirkov. IT's not technically a course, but he wrote it for his teaching (his classes won a lot, a lot of prizes).
It's ofcourse, about low level programming, but since, the lower levels underpin the higher ones, for me the most useful thing was this book.
It was a super challenge for me personally (no degree in computing or anything), and working through it i felt more things click than any other resource i tapped into before. I feel i understand much better in any language now, what actually happens on the PC, and how to go about investigating what happens if i do not. (finding specifications, isa documents, documentation on interpreters of scripts etc. etc., learning to read code/sources.)
That being said, do you have a specific direction in which you want to improve? Because this obviously leans towards a specific flavor of programming, where it's maybe not as useful if you want a different flavor. I know many good/professional programmers who know nothing of this stuff and are really really good in their own domains.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most challenging programming course you have taken?
#33The title asks specifically for a programming course but the post text says not to limit to programming courses. It's a little confusing. Programming is something you will get better at as you do it, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Instead I would look for computer science courses that interest you and a course outside of comp sci that requires a lot of writing. Although technical writing is probably what you…
I edited the description after reading some replies here.I will try to improve on those aspects you have mentioned and on writing clearly. Thanks
edit: I wasn't looking for programming courses exactly but I thought they might suffice. I haven't graduated yet and I love to work on challenging stuff in my free time.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most challenging programming course you have taken?
#34In undergrad, Operating Systems was pretty challenging. (Duke)
Re: Ask HN: What is the most challenging programming course you have taken?
#35I don't know how much this applies to other institutions, but speaking personally, my undergrad Operating Systems course very much threw the students to the wolves. It wasn't one of those "memorize the textbook and you'll be fine" type of classes. It was a "do a bunch of independent research and figure a whole lot of things out for yourself" type of class.
At my uni that class has ~30% passing rate depending on teacher.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most challenging programming course you have taken?
#36My brain regularly explodes once it comes close enough to delimited continuations. I haven't even understood what a "prompt" is in that context.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most challenging programming course you have taken?
#37A course on abstract interpretation [1], taught by Radhia [2] and Patrick [2] Cousot at ENS in 1989. To my shame, I must admit that I didn't appreciate it at the time. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_interpretation [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radhia_Cousot [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Cousot
Very close to my experience, the most challenging course I had was "Semantics" during the 2nd year of Magistère. To this day I'm not sure I fully understand what I was taught during that course.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most challenging programming course you have taken?
#38Finite Automata and the Theory of Computation. Lots of Turing Machines and constructing proofs. I'm not sure I would have passed if it wasn't for my friend who worked with me on the homework.
AMIE?
Re: Ask HN: What is the most challenging programming course you have taken?
#39Logical programming (prolog). I'm not sure I would call it the most challenging class, but it's the one where the most amount of people failed to learn anything. If I had to guess then 90% of the students (or more) ended up not being able to do anything with prolog. I haven't seen any other class that had such an abysmally low rate of successful learning. I think the only knowledge most people took away from this cla…
In my final semester of uni, we did an "AI" module, which involved using prolog. I didn't really grok it until the night before the final exam. Felt like I had a bit of a beautiful mind moment with all the possibilities opening up to me when it clicked.
This was my only 100% final exam module with no continuous assessment/midterm papers or exams/projects to pick up slack if I failed, so I was nervous going into it. Kinda felt like my whole degree weighed on it. That night before, I just *got it* and it made all the difference in the world. I got how powerful it is, and why to use it.
I haven't used prolog since.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most challenging programming course you have taken?
#40Logical programming (prolog). I'm not sure I would call it the most challenging class, but it's the one where the most amount of people failed to learn anything. If I had to guess then 90% of the students (or more) ended up not being able to do anything with prolog. I haven't seen any other class that had such an abysmally low rate of successful learning. I think the only knowledge most people took away from this cla…
> I want to improve my skills further
> Logical programming (prolog) ... but it's the one where the most amount of people failed to learn anything
I think the implication is that hnthrow098767 would like useful experience at the end of the course.
That being said: 25 years after my prolog course, and 21 years into my career, I wonder if I would take something away from it now.