Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

25 Years Later: Interview with Linus Torvalds

linuxjournal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 146 posts

Re: 25 Years Later: Interview with Linus Torvalds

#121

Post by vonmoltke »

madez wrote: post #89
jaabe wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think stackoverflow is a problem at all, I think it’s much better to have people ask stupid questions than to call them stupid. That being said, I do think people owe it to themselves to read the documentation first. I’m extremely rarely in a situation where the official documentation isn’t monumentally better than every other option. There are a few exceptions of course, when the official documentation flat…

It seems to me there is some kind of political war going on when it comes to education about computers. One side argues, they must know what a computer is, how it roughly works, what it can do and cannot do, and how you can program it. The other side says, knowing how to use Microsoft Office and Excel, and Facebook and Instagram 'responsibly' is enough, and they fight tooth and nails that the education doesn't become…

> The other side says, knowing how to use Microsoft Office and Excel, and Facebook and Instagram 'responsibly' is enough, and they fight tooth and nails that the education doesn't become deeper.

I have certainly encountered efforts to ignore or deprioritize deeper education, but I have yet to meet active opposition to it. What form does it take, and what is the rationale?

Re: 25 Years Later: Interview with Linus Torvalds

#122

Post by vonmoltke »

eljimmy wrote: post #2

Linus’ view on anonymity was surprising to read. I’m not sure I agree with him on that but his view on social media being a platform for the lowest common denominator sure seems agreeable.

I'm kinda surprised it isn't getting more attention here. I wonder what his opinion of "the right to be forgotten" (a.k.a., "the right to take back stupid shit you once said").

Re: 25 Years Later: Interview with Linus Torvalds

#123

Post by tim333 »

madez wrote: post #89
jaabe wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think stackoverflow is a problem at all, I think it’s much better to have people ask stupid questions than to call them stupid. That being said, I do think people owe it to themselves to read the documentation first. I’m extremely rarely in a situation where the official documentation isn’t monumentally better than every other option. There are a few exceptions of course, when the official documentation flat…

It seems to me there is some kind of political war going on when it comes to education about computers. One side argues, they must know what a computer is, how it roughly works, what it can do and cannot do, and how you can program it. The other side says, knowing how to use Microsoft Office and Excel, and Facebook and Instagram 'responsibly' is enough, and they fight tooth and nails that the education doesn't become…

>One side argues, they must know ...how you can program it

>The other...fight tooth and nails

I'd guess a big part of the problem is many teachers not being able to program. After all programming jobs tend to pay more than teaching ones and even with those there are issues eg https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/

Anecdote when I was like 15 we had a computer class but the teacher didn't have a clue and I ended up showing the others how to do 10 PRINT "some stuff"; 20 GOTO 10 etc

Re: 25 Years Later: Interview with Linus Torvalds

#124

Post by amanaplanacanal »

leesec wrote: post #93
ben165 wrote: post #3

>Bob: Is there any advice you'd like to give to young programmers/computer science students? >Linus: I'm actually the worst person to ask. I knew I was interested in math and computers since an early age, and I was largely self-taught until university. And everything I did was fairly self-driven. So I don't understand the problems people face when they say "what should I do?" It's not where I came from at all. This i…

Ever been a novice at something hard but still wanted to do it? Like really, if you were to try to learn Korean (assuming you don't know it) right now, you think you'd have any simple questions that someone who'd been speaking Korean all their life would find absurdly easy? Everyone starts from somewhere, this sort of ego-ist stuff is toxic. It is okay to be bad at things and it is okay to ask dumb questions.

Most questions are easily answerable by learning to use a search engine.

Although I have discovered that sometimes things I remember seeing the answer to before are no longer discoverable by search :(

Re: 25 Years Later: Interview with Linus Torvalds

#125

Post by AnimalMuppet »

mtreis86 wrote: post #100
madez wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me there is some kind of political war going on when it comes to education about computers. One side argues, they must know what a computer is, how it roughly works, what it can do and cannot do, and how you can program it. The other side says, knowing how to use Microsoft Office and Excel, and Facebook and Instagram 'responsibly' is enough, and they fight tooth and nails that the education doesn't become…

The mindset I have seen is less fear, more "if I don't understand this, how could anyone else?"

Hmm. So if the teacher doesn't understand anything deeper, then the teacher is probably going to resist making the class deeper. That would make perfect sense.

Re: 25 Years Later: Interview with Linus Torvalds

#126

Post by andrepd »

ben165 wrote: post #3

>Bob: Is there any advice you'd like to give to young programmers/computer science students? >Linus: I'm actually the worst person to ask. I knew I was interested in math and computers since an early age, and I was largely self-taught until university. And everything I did was fairly self-driven. So I don't understand the problems people face when they say "what should I do?" It's not where I came from at all. This i…

>You can see how stupid people are when you just read the questions on Stackoverflow today.

Wow, why the aggressiveness? This strikes me as prime "/r/iamverysmart" material. Yes, we get it, you figured everything out for yourself, well done -.- Yet if something is not trivially apparent to somebody (as everything seems to be to you) why should they not ask questions in a website whose purpose is to ask questions. I find it's almost always better to just ask for help when you are stuck rather than bang your head on a brick wall for hours. It will save you time and, if the teacher is good, it will make things much more clear.

>Nobody seems to figure things out by themselves anymore.

Again, the "back in my day" cliché. What is your basis for saying this. Sure, we can have a discussion about whether or not the abundance of material can make students more inclined to look everything up before giving it an honest shot, but a priori I would be inclined to say that more material and more teachers, accessible even to those not in formal education, can only be a good thing.

>Same with YouTube, when people explaining simple math things with extremely effort people complaining then that today's teachers are shit. But it's more your own lack if you're not able to imagine these thing inside your mind by yourself.

To be honest, this attitude makes me quite annoyed.

You will never in a million years catch me ragging on somebody that is making an honest effort to learn, even if they are struggling and it's taking them a long time to grasp the material. And clearly, if somebody is looking up teaching materials online of their own free will, they are interested and curious and motivated to learn. That's commendable, and it's a terribly arrogant and presumptuous thing to do IMO, chastising someone for not immediately understanding everything.

Re: 25 Years Later: Interview with Linus Torvalds

#127

Post by favorited »

std_throwawayay wrote: post #79
decoyworker wrote: post #76

I'd like to see someone ask: If you were to redesign Linux from scratch right now what would you do differently?

Would he use C++ or Rust?

From the interview: "As to C, nothing better has come around. ... And honestly, it doesn't look likely to change."

Re: 25 Years Later: Interview with Linus Torvalds

#128

Post by Faark »

madez wrote: post #89
jaabe wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think stackoverflow is a problem at all, I think it’s much better to have people ask stupid questions than to call them stupid. That being said, I do think people owe it to themselves to read the documentation first. I’m extremely rarely in a situation where the official documentation isn’t monumentally better than every other option. There are a few exceptions of course, when the official documentation flat…

It seems to me there is some kind of political war going on when it comes to education about computers. One side argues, they must know what a computer is, how it roughly works, what it can do and cannot do, and how you can program it. The other side says, knowing how to use Microsoft Office and Excel, and Facebook and Instagram 'responsibly' is enough, and they fight tooth and nails that the education doesn't become…

Feels like what you are describing was the state of affairs like 15 years ago when i was in secondary school. We had an "Informationstechnischer Grundkurs" teaching office / excel and a separate programming course for guys like me who wanted to focus on that. I don't really follow the state of education that closely, but would be quite surprised if the latter is not at least more widely available now.

Does everyone need to know how to program? I don't know, probably not. Us humans specializing is the only way we have to handle the huge amount of knowledge necessary to support our society. I certainly would have a hard time just surviving by myself. Also education slots are limited, we'd have to abolish other courses in exchange. This obviously will generate opposition.

Now let imagine we have an open slot to teach "CS" for 90min a week for a year in such a young age. What do you teach that would actually be useful to most of them later on? A bit of python? Basic C, since it doesn't come with many complicated abstractions on top? Javascript, since many of its courses quickly give colorful results? Even the programming bachelor I later did had trouble answering those questions, they switched from c->java->c++ to teaching 3 courses java. Plus all the languages other courses used and had to teach pretty much from scratch.

Re: 25 Years Later: Interview with Linus Torvalds

#129

Post by AnimalMuppet »

coldtea wrote: post #64
flukus wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just absurd, not every hour of every day can be spent in resistance of things you don't like. I doubt you were actively resisting the powers that be while you were sleeping last night, does that mean you were sending them a signal that you're perfectly happy with the way things are?

> That is just absurd, not every hour of every day can be spent in resistance of things you don't like. No, but many hours can. If those aren't, appreciating nature (or gardening or whatever) instead, has political implications... As someone quoted, "You might not care for politics, but politics cares for you".

True, those who don't want to do politics will still have politics done to them. But...

> No, but many hours can. If those aren't, appreciating nature (or gardening or whatever) instead, has political implications...

Sure. But also, spending time on politics has gardening implications. What is your basis for deciding that politics should be the thing that wins? Further, what is your basis for saying that politics should be the thing that wins for my use of time? I'll be involved in politics when I think the issues are important enough, and not otherwise, you got a problem with that?

I don't want politics to dominate my life, my time, and my mind. I deny you the right to tell me that it should.

Re: 25 Years Later: Interview with Linus Torvalds

#130

Post by Pimpus »

coldtea wrote: post #44
Pimpus wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Not politicising" is a political act and statement as well. There is no dodging politics. Sigh. Are you posting this Twitter meme seriously or is it a joke? It doesn't even stand up to light intellectual scrutiny. As for actors, musicians etc blabbering about politics, the things they say tend to be elitist, disconnected and uninformed. Don't think it does the world any good, apart from highlighting just how far r…

> Sigh. Are you posting this Twitter meme seriously or is it a joke? It doesn't even stand up to light intellectual scrutiny. Actually, far from a Twitter meme, it's a millennia long empirical observation. It's only the disconnect from power of today's citizen that make them thing they can be uninvolved with politics (and that this doesn't send a political message and have political impact). The very definition of a…

> The very definition of a citizen was one who was active in politics (the inverse being someone preoccupied with their own private matters, an "idiotis" in Ancient Greek, and the etymology for "idiot").

Um, OK... but not everything is a political act. It's just a ridiculous meme I see now and again.

Post reply on HN