OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science • Hacker News Board

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#21

Post by newguy1234 » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 7:32 PM UTC

jamestimmins wrote: post #3

This has some good courses, but in general seems overly long and is of inconsistent quality. As an alternative, https://teachyourselfcs.com/ is a curriculum from the folks at Bradfield, but it's narrowly focused on core CS concepts/topics.

The big problem with projects like this is the quality is pretty much lacking. Most of those MOOCs to begin with are no way intended to replace the equivalent college class. Most of them are watered down introductions to the courses. At a baseline for me to take any MOOC seriously then I want to see a high-quality textbook (or equivalent) for the course. If that doesn't exist then my opinion is the course is likely to be of low-quality. I'm sorry but replacing a textbook with a series of online blog articles or tutorials is simply not a sufficient replacement.

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#22

Post by codesushi42 » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 7:34 PM UTC

saboot wrote: post #18

I really like this list, but believe it's wrongly titled. I'm a nuclear engineer, who pretty much just writes modelling software all day. The software architecture stuff is something I've never been taught and always felt would be immensely valuable to learn. Some good resources for that on this list. Also a request for any resources of scientists trying to get their head around how to write good software, we're all…

Also a request for any resources of scientists trying to get their head around how to write good software, we're all pretty much people who once read a C++ tutorial and just went with it.

That is an interesting question I had not thought of. I genuinely cannot think of a single resource that teaches good software engineering practices, like how to structure code in a robust and maintainable way. In fact, many books that I read usually include examples using terrible coding practices. And then the ones dedicated to software engineering are usually too out of date or academic (GoF, Fowler books).

I would say read up on inversion of control and dependency injection. And then a book on unit testing. Writing your APIs to use dependency injection and making them easily testable (by testing output not internal state) gets you most of the way there.

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#23

Post by natalyarostova » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 7:34 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #2

This is a bit hypocritical coming from a self-taught dropout, but I have kind of grown to dislike a lot of these "learn programming on your own!" things/bootcamps/courses. This isn't because of some idea that it's bad to learn programming for fun, but more that I think it's kind of reductive to try and squeeze things down to a streamlined lesson to begin with...There's a reason college takes four or more years; it ta…

You can't cheat true knowledge. I use MIT open courseware. It's dry material that is painful and frustrating to learn; which means it works!

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#24

Post by lol768 » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 7:34 PM UTC

Pfhreak wrote: post #4

tombert wrote: post #2

This is a bit hypocritical coming from a self-taught dropout, but I have kind of grown to dislike a lot of these "learn programming on your own!" things/bootcamps/courses. This isn't because of some idea that it's bad to learn programming for fun, but more that I think it's kind of reductive to try and squeeze things down to a streamlined lesson to begin with...There's a reason college takes four or more years; it ta…

I'm 50/50 on this. Part of me really agrees with you -- you need time and practice and mistakes to learn this stuff. But also, I'm not sure it has to be wall clock time. Four years at university gets you breadth that is probably good for you as a human, and probably important for contextualizing your work as an engineer (oh hey, history might be a valuable lesson for your understanding of ethics. Art and literature m…

>oh hey, history might be a valuable lesson for your understanding of ethics. Art and literature might combine with your computer science degree to inspire projects natural language processing or generative art

For what it's worth, this is a very American approach to college.

You generally wouldn't spend more than 3 years on an undergrad course as a student in the UK - because you tend to spend the vast majority of time on your chosen degree subject. There's maybe room for one or two optional modules in an unrelated field.

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#25

Post by proverbialbunny » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #2

This is a bit hypocritical coming from a self-taught dropout, but I have kind of grown to dislike a lot of these "learn programming on your own!" things/bootcamps/courses. This isn't because of some idea that it's bad to learn programming for fun, but more that I think it's kind of reductive to try and squeeze things down to a streamlined lesson to begin with...There's a reason college takes four or more years; it ta…

There is an assumption being made here, and that everyone learns in same or similar ways, making it necessary for this sort of content to slowly sink in.

While true, it is not a replacement for a 4 year college, not everyone learns the same way. For me, I can blow through an MIT course at an accelerated rate and retain most of it, but that's because I made a hobby out of meta-learning for a while and really got into effective ways to learn.

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#26

Post by arminiusreturns » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

lol768 wrote: post #24

Pfhreak wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 50/50 on this. Part of me really agrees with you -- you need time and practice and mistakes to learn this stuff. But also, I'm not sure it has to be wall clock time. Four years at university gets you breadth that is probably good for you as a human, and probably important for contextualizing your work as an engineer (oh hey, history might be a valuable lesson for your understanding of ethics. Art and literature m…

>oh hey, history might be a valuable lesson for your understanding of ethics. Art and literature might combine with your computer science degree to inspire projects natural language processing or generative art For what it's worth, this is a very American approach to college. You generally wouldn't spend more than 3 years on an undergrad course as a student in the UK - because you tend to spend the vast majority of t…

I think that depends on the country and the type of uni. I have some friends that have been at top notch schools, and I have taken the time to see how they did things, and the trivium and quadrivium seem to be the cornerstones for elite education (which I was trying to self-replicate). That said, it feels like public schools (which are actually private... why this silly naming?) in the UK do this better than private ones, which is why in the UK you spend less time on those things in undergrad and above.

In the US I don't think they hardly reference the trivium or quadrivium, but the structure is loosely based on the principle, so because they have lost the reasoning behind it their course load is much more wild and varied, and sometimes unnecessary.

This is also my main beef with those who claim we should just do vocational training or very narrow course loads... the benefit of wide but shallow knowledge is large when applied properly. The US just doesn't apply it very properly. One thing the US does do much better, I must say, is the egalitarian culture though, which offers people the opportunity to laterally move in education much more freely.

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#27

Post by aloknnikhil » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

saboot wrote: post #18

I really like this list, but believe it's wrongly titled. I'm a nuclear engineer, who pretty much just writes modelling software all day. The software architecture stuff is something I've never been taught and always felt would be immensely valuable to learn. Some good resources for that on this list. Also a request for any resources of scientists trying to get their head around how to write good software, we're all…

Have you given The Pragmatic Programmer a try? It's a great resource that draws parallels to practical examples on what to do and what not to do.

https://pragprog.com/book/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-20t...

Re: OSSU: A path to a free self-taught education in computer science

#28

Post by Jimpulse » Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

newguy1234 wrote: post #21

jamestimmins wrote: post #3

This has some good courses, but in general seems overly long and is of inconsistent quality. As an alternative, https://teachyourselfcs.com/ is a curriculum from the folks at Bradfield, but it's narrowly focused on core CS concepts/topics.

The big problem with projects like this is the quality is pretty much lacking. Most of those MOOCs to begin with are no way intended to replace the equivalent college class. Most of them are watered down introductions to the courses. At a baseline for me to take any MOOC seriously then I want to see a high-quality textbook (or equivalent) for the course. If that doesn't exist then my opinion is the course is likely t…

The site gp posted addresses your concerns. All the topics listed in that site primarily focus on textbooks with the videos or courses as additional resources.