The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)

#171

Post by ghaff » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 3:55 PM UTC

commandersaki wrote: post #123

theonething wrote: post #49

Lots of laudatory comments here about this being essential but missing teaching but I have a different take. The content looks good, nothing wrong with teaching these things. But these things can be and are learned on the job fairly quickly for anyone interested enough in the field and with enough aptitude. In fact, I would say these things can be learned on your own time as a side effect of being interested in compu…

> The class is being run during MIT’s “Independent Activities Period” in January 2020 — a one-month semester that features shorter student-run classes. While the lectures themselves are only available to MIT students, we will provide all lecture materials along with video recordings of lectures to the public. It seems that the course is only 1 month and runs alongside some student-run classes. So this is from the get…

There's quite a broad mix of offerings during IAP--a lot of which isn't part of a regular academic program and a lot of which is just for fun/intellectual interest. It's mostly all non-credit. And there are a fair number of sessions dealing with practical details that may not be covered in regular courses.

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)

#172

Post by berkle4455 » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 3:59 PM UTC

whynotminot wrote: post #159

bjourne wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a guitar tutor once and I asked him if I honestly had a chance to get into the Royal College of Music. He said absolutely, no problem, as long as you practice for at least two hours per day. Every day. For the next ten years... High-level CS is the same and I don't see any reason why it should be different. There is just no, or very little, time to teach introductory programming classes at most universities.

Am I unique in not romanticizing computer science? I see it more as a trade. There can certainly be some beauty to it. I’m sure coal miners hold some of their own in special regard too.

Well after they spend 4-8yrs of their life learning CS, damn right they’re going to romanticize and gatekeep it every chance they get.

Meanwhile I agree with you, software engineering jobs are a trade 90% of the time. It’s why so many highly educated folks are being laid-off right now, while the doers keep-on building and making bank.

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)

#173

Post by adrianmonk » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 4:00 PM UTC

btheshoe wrote: post #97

I personally don't like the undertone of the class (tho very grateful that this material exists!!!) - this idea that universities are failing their students by not teaching them necessary material. I think a better phrasing is that students are failing themselves by not learning the material. I've personally never considered it the responsibility of my university to educate me - some of the classes are certainly usef…

> the ultimate onus falls on me to gain the skills that will lead me to success

I see where you're coming from, but sometimes you don't even know what the necessary skills are. Even if you're very self-motivated and enthusiastic, you can still benefit by being pointed in the right direction. That's part of what a good school or teacher should do for you. (And while they're at it, they can provide materials that smooth out the path to get there.)

You should never expect them to cover 100% of that, but if they're aware of a way that they can get closer to 100% than they currently are, then it's a good thing for them to do it.

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)

#174

Post by anarticle » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

Excellent guide! Lol at title though, I just realized how spoiled I was with my CS degree from Drexel.

We had a UNIX tools and an Advanced Programming Techniques course. Both gold. Taught from the sausage dog book and the Unix Programming Environment book iirc. Totally standard texts I thought?

Link to sausage dog (ha!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming

Advanced Unix: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Programming_in_the_Un...

Some of it is old hat, but TPOP ages particularly well due to its lack of language specificity. Something we could all do with :).

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)

#175

Post by ghaff » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 4:10 PM UTC

readingnews wrote: post #170

I have tried in vain to get this implemented at our uni. I can say a few things I find interesting: - Students used to get this stuff but no longer do, for example all workstations used to be unix, so when you left, you "knew" "unix" (shell, vim, etc) - Due to things like ABET, classes are crammed with need-to-know-for-accreditation info so, well, some items need to go by the wayside (many are in the MIT list) - Ther…

Note that this is not part of the CS curriculum at MIT. It's a series of classes during Independent Activities Period in January which is mostly unstructured time when students can do or not do any activities that catch their fancy. It works well for this sort of thing but students also do a ton of stuff that isn't especially academically-related.

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)

#176

Post by starkd » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 4:11 PM UTC

readingnews wrote: post #170

I have tried in vain to get this implemented at our uni. I can say a few things I find interesting: - Students used to get this stuff but no longer do, for example all workstations used to be unix, so when you left, you "knew" "unix" (shell, vim, etc) - Due to things like ABET, classes are crammed with need-to-know-for-accreditation info so, well, some items need to go by the wayside (many are in the MIT list) - Ther…

It would seem this would be the perfect kind of class for online learning. Perhaps even as a wiki to crowd source helpful contributions. Most learning doesn't even have to be directed, but just point students in the right direction. This is a ripe area to find ways to better facilitate individual initiative, because a moderate level of effort yields tremendous reward. Plus, you can easily determine if you are doing it right.

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)

#177

Post by OOPMan » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 4:11 PM UTC

nickpeterson wrote: post #109

tokinonagare wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not a talented developer > [uses F#] That has to be humblebragging. The average .net developer is terrified of or doesn't even know about F#.

I’ve encountered the same thing. I’m a terrible programmer but find f# way clearer than most C#/java. But I work with tons of great developers who would rather cut off their finger than learn f#, it bothers me because it exposes some fundamental difference between us I dont like to believe exists.

> I'm a terrible programmer

Oh? Did you win some award? I'm curious as to how you're determining this?

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)

#178

Post by starkd » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 4:15 PM UTC

tkiolp4 wrote: post #122

dfee wrote: post #2

The content taught here is the highest payout thing you can learn, in my opinion. Certainly more important than actually writing code or learning algos. What this content covers should unlock iteration speed, which is the single greatest lever in learning and growing faster (on a computer). Thus it gives you more cycles to go back to improving your code, experimenting with algos, etc. Probably also highly correlated…

Indeed. While I think learning algorithms and ds is a non-negotiable thing, in 90% of the companies out there in 90% of the situations one will never have to write a binary search from scratch or implement a queue from scratch. On the other hand, profiling, debugging, glueing things together via bash, etc., that’s what distinguishes you from the colleges who only write passable code.

But writing implementing some of those basic data structures is some of the funnest things to do in uni.

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)

#179

Post by raarts » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 4:18 PM UTC

I teach various classes of CS in college. Have been trying to get this into the curriculum for a few years. It seems to be happening after the summer.

Software engineers are way more productive if they know their tools.

Re: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education (2020)

#180

Post by Jensson » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 4:24 PM UTC

jbverschoor wrote: post #151

tkiolp4 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s limited time. One cannot vey curious about all the stuff related to programming, so we must be selective.

Sure.. that’s the story of the lumberjack with a blunt axe.

Nah, debuggers are useful but hardly necessary to do your job well. People have been productive at programming long before they had many useful tools at all, the most important thing will always be how well you understand the program you are writing and not how you use your tools.