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Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

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Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#41

Post by lani »

ohyes wrote: post #40
angrycoder wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter fucking Norvig is going to sit you down and teach you some shit for free and all you have to say is 'argle bargle...social'? Social: IRC, message boards, facebook, google+, skype, mumble, news groups, facetime, instant messenger, etc. Try to teach someone something: Stack Overflow, reddit, hacker news, your own blog, also, all of the above under social. Collaboration: google docs, drop box, ftp, gliffy.

First off, I get that Norvig is a celebrity. Celebrity has little to do with teaching ability. Secondly, I think reducing my point to 'argle bargle...social' is a little unfair. This may just be coming from my psyche as someone who has been in a fairly lonely job with few peers, but one of the best things about going to college was getting to know smart and interesting people.(On the other hand, learning to deal with…

> First off, I get that Norvig is a celebrity. Celebrity has little to do with teaching ability.

It's not like he's popular for being snooki's best friend or something .. I feel Peter Norvig is a celebrity for the right reasons here.. there are two types of teachers - those who get you to see the world in interesting ways, and those who illuminate targets that one wouldn't hit normally on one's own. I'm guessing Norvig's course might be more of the latter type..

> .. but one of the best things about going to college was getting to know smart and interesting people personally, I feel 'getting to know' is not enough. As math ematicians/scientists or techies or programmers, our peer group /culture is our identity, and pretty much the main reason we wake up in the morning and check email for patch updates or stay up till 5 running code and what not. yep, online courses don't give that. And I too badly feel the need for it

tl;dr first point - disagree, second point - agree edit:formatting

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#42

Post by [deleted] »

ohyes wrote: post #40
angrycoder wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter fucking Norvig is going to sit you down and teach you some shit for free and all you have to say is 'argle bargle...social'? Social: IRC, message boards, facebook, google+, skype, mumble, news groups, facetime, instant messenger, etc. Try to teach someone something: Stack Overflow, reddit, hacker news, your own blog, also, all of the above under social. Collaboration: google docs, drop box, ftp, gliffy.

First off, I get that Norvig is a celebrity. Celebrity has little to do with teaching ability. Secondly, I think reducing my point to 'argle bargle...social' is a little unfair. This may just be coming from my psyche as someone who has been in a fairly lonely job with few peers, but one of the best things about going to college was getting to know smart and interesting people.(On the other hand, learning to deal with…

[deleted]

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#43

Post by angrycoder »

ohyes wrote: post #40
angrycoder wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter fucking Norvig is going to sit you down and teach you some shit for free and all you have to say is 'argle bargle...social'? Social: IRC, message boards, facebook, google+, skype, mumble, news groups, facetime, instant messenger, etc. Try to teach someone something: Stack Overflow, reddit, hacker news, your own blog, also, all of the above under social. Collaboration: google docs, drop box, ftp, gliffy.

First off, I get that Norvig is a celebrity. Celebrity has little to do with teaching ability. Secondly, I think reducing my point to 'argle bargle...social' is a little unfair. This may just be coming from my psyche as someone who has been in a fairly lonely job with few peers, but one of the best things about going to college was getting to know smart and interesting people.(On the other hand, learning to deal with…

My point is, there is no shortage of communication and collaboration tools on the internet.

Regarding your need for community or social learning, there is nothing preventing you from watching these lectures with a group of actual people.

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#44

Post by jongraehl »

ohyes wrote: post #40
angrycoder wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter fucking Norvig is going to sit you down and teach you some shit for free and all you have to say is 'argle bargle...social'? Social: IRC, message boards, facebook, google+, skype, mumble, news groups, facetime, instant messenger, etc. Try to teach someone something: Stack Overflow, reddit, hacker news, your own blog, also, all of the above under social. Collaboration: google docs, drop box, ftp, gliffy.

First off, I get that Norvig is a celebrity. Celebrity has little to do with teaching ability. Secondly, I think reducing my point to 'argle bargle...social' is a little unfair. This may just be coming from my psyche as someone who has been in a fairly lonely job with few peers, but one of the best things about going to college was getting to know smart and interesting people.(On the other hand, learning to deal with…

http://norvig.com/paip.html

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#45

Post by msg »

msg wrote: post #39

I'm a programmer. I'm really enjoying CS 373 (Thrun's robots). I haven't done much Python but I haven't found anything too taxing. The lectures are deceptively well-designed, with lots of (asynchronous) interaction. Try a course, you'll see what I mean. The homework is a little more brain-stretching. It usually involves some code reading and intuition that was not served to you on a plate during the lecture. I have f…

One thing I forgot to mention. You can enter the course now and still get a good grade!

At least for CS 373, and I think for the other ones, they changed the grading scheme.

We have already had three homeworks due and are now on week 4. In the old scheme, you could drop one homework (out of seven). Homework was half the grade and the final the other half. So you could currently get a max of 66% on the homework.

They added a grading scheme that counts the final at 100%.

They will give you the better of your grade under the two schemes, to not disadvantage people who did well on the homework.

Join in today!

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#46

Post by graeme »

msg wrote: post #45
msg wrote: post #39

I'm a programmer. I'm really enjoying CS 373 (Thrun's robots). I haven't done much Python but I haven't found anything too taxing. The lectures are deceptively well-designed, with lots of (asynchronous) interaction. Try a course, you'll see what I mean. The homework is a little more brain-stretching. It usually involves some code reading and intuition that was not served to you on a plate during the lecture. I have f…

One thing I forgot to mention. You can enter the course now and still get a good grade! At least for CS 373, and I think for the other ones, they changed the grading scheme. We have already had three homeworks due and are now on week 4. In the old scheme, you could drop one homework (out of seven). Homework was half the grade and the final the other half. So you could currently get a max of 66% on the homework. They…

That's correct, and it's true for CS 101 too. The final is 100% if you join late.

It's worth doing just to see how they're handling online education. Exciting times.

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#47

Post by jiganti »

I'm beginning to learn programming this year and have tackled a number of tutorials- Udacity's CS101 has been far and away the most helpful. This is the best format in my opinion- extremely short videos and regular quizzes with more complex homework problems at the end of each unit.

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#48

Post by aseembehl »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #3

I have a question perhaps someone knows the answer to: is Udacity concentrating on short, relatively easy classes for mass appeal and Coursera concentrating on more difficult and rigorous classes? I am currently taking two Coursera classes (one is on probabilistic graphical models and the other on NLP) and so far at least, I am impressed by the depth of material covered and general quality. I will probably need to sp…

"is Udacity concentrating on short, relatively easy classes for mass appeal and Coursera concentrating on more difficult and rigorous classes?"

Absolutely, your inference hit the nail on the head. Coursera is trying to fill a gap. Very few people across the globe have access to high quality higher education.

Udacity on the other hand, though noble in in their cause, have considerably watered down lectures/assignments for greater accessibility. I can understand the watered down programming class for greater accessibility, since even limited knowledge of programming is something which can greatly empower people who had no knowledge of it before. But advanced classes like robotics are pointless if they don't go into depth of the topic.

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#49

Post by irahul »

ohyes wrote: post #40
angrycoder wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter fucking Norvig is going to sit you down and teach you some shit for free and all you have to say is 'argle bargle...social'? Social: IRC, message boards, facebook, google+, skype, mumble, news groups, facetime, instant messenger, etc. Try to teach someone something: Stack Overflow, reddit, hacker news, your own blog, also, all of the above under social. Collaboration: google docs, drop box, ftp, gliffy.

First off, I get that Norvig is a celebrity. Celebrity has little to do with teaching ability. Secondly, I think reducing my point to 'argle bargle...social' is a little unfair. This may just be coming from my psyche as someone who has been in a fairly lonely job with few peers, but one of the best things about going to college was getting to know smart and interesting people.(On the other hand, learning to deal with…

> First off, I get that Norvig is a celebrity. Celebrity has little to do with teaching ability.

Perter Norvig is a celebrity because of his technical accomplishments and teaching prowess. He is the author of PAIP which is regarded as one of the best books on programming. If you haven't already, check out his articles:

http://norvig.com/lispy.html http://norvig.com/spell-correct.html http://norvig.com/sudoku.html

So yes, when someone of Norvig's caliber wants to teach me something, social be fucked, I settle down and listen.

Re: Peter Norvig to teach 'Design of Computer Programs' at Udacity

#50

Post by nimrody »

Too many very similar or related courses...

I'd love to take Norvig's course, but am already committed to Coursera's "Design and Analysis of Algorithms". Came here to recommend it. Tim Roughgarden is an excellent instructor and the videos are well presented.

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