Live data from Hacker News

Udacity goes live

udacity.com

21–30 of 45 posts

Re: Udacity goes live

#21
I'm a little curious about some of the style choices in python code. For example:

    # used by Sebastian
    for k in range(len(measurements)):
        p = sense(p, measurements[k])
vs

    # shorter, saner, and more Pythonic
    for m in measurements:
        p = sense(p, m)

I guess the old aphorism applies: a good Pascal programmer can write Pascal in any language. (Not to criticize Sebastian's programming ability, only to wonder about the pedagogical choice.)

Re: Udacity goes live

#22
Key point here is that although the courses sound potentially advanced, they seem targeted towards people who are beginners at programming/computer science. I'm not entirely sure if this is stressed enough on the site.

However I'm also curious what the later units will look like, as I completed the final quiz in a few minutes for the first search engine unit without watching any lectures and without any python knowledge. Very basic stuff.

Re: Udacity goes live

#24
It seems to me that all the e-learning courses that are popping up these days are focused on programming.

When will we see courses on psychology, Spanish, martial arts, etc? What would those courses even look like in an e-learning format?

Re: Udacity goes live

#25
post #21

I'm a little curious about some of the style choices in python code. For example: # used by Sebastian for k in range(len(measurements)): p = sense(p, measurements[k]) vs # shorter, saner, and more Pythonic for m in measurements: p = sense(p, m) I guess the old aphorism applies: a good Pascal programmer can write Pascal in any language. (Not to criticize Sebastian's programming ability, only to wonder about the pedago…

A great computer scientist != a great programmer.

Re: Udacity goes live

#26
post #24

It seems to me that all the e-learning courses that are popping up these days are focused on programming. When will we see courses on psychology, Spanish, martial arts, etc? What would those courses even look like in an e-learning format?

The tech for online learning is still being developed.so the courses offered are those close to the developers'interests and competencies, much like how the internet was first used for and by scientists. But the tech will spread.

Re: Udacity goes live

#27
post #24

It seems to me that all the e-learning courses that are popping up these days are focused on programming. When will we see courses on psychology, Spanish, martial arts, etc? What would those courses even look like in an e-learning format?

http://www.anatomy-class.org http://www.greenbuilding-class.org https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu

Re: Udacity goes live

#28
post #25
post #21

I'm a little curious about some of the style choices in python code. For example: # used by Sebastian for k in range(len(measurements)): p = sense(p, measurements[k]) vs # shorter, saner, and more Pythonic for m in measurements: p = sense(p, m) I guess the old aphorism applies: a good Pascal programmer can write Pascal in any language. (Not to criticize Sebastian's programming ability, only to wonder about the pedago…

A great computer scientist != a great programmer.

[deleted]

Re: Udacity goes live

#29
post #21

I'm a little curious about some of the style choices in python code. For example: # used by Sebastian for k in range(len(measurements)): p = sense(p, measurements[k]) vs # shorter, saner, and more Pythonic for m in measurements: p = sense(p, m) I guess the old aphorism applies: a good Pascal programmer can write Pascal in any language. (Not to criticize Sebastian's programming ability, only to wonder about the pedago…

I was at GoogleIO last year and code like this was shown as example code on a slide. I think I sighed audibly.

Re: Udacity goes live

#30
I only looked over the 101 course, and maybe it's not aimed at someone who already has an understanding of those concepts, but I felt like it was a really fast fly-by of topics and skipped a lot of things.

Thinking of the best way to teach this stuff is something I spend a bit of time doing, and honestly I'm not sure what the right approach is. Once I thought you should learn from Ada's work and the looms all the way up to things like the Enigma machine, and jump into the things that started happening in the 50s research. Basically, grow your knowledge from the ground up and make all the same discoveries.

The other approach is to take a high-level fly by of concepts like strings. Most of us here on HN know that strings and how they work aren't as simple as presented in the 101 videos and there's so much more to know about them.

I'm concerned that this style of teaching (implementing concepts without understanding how they work) is also the style that's lead to a lot of confusion in my personal learning experience as I progressed. Once upon a time everything in the browser like HTTP and rendering was magic and I wrote sloppy web apps. In a similar vein, I never really "got" calculus until I read a book that explained the history of how Newton made up "infinitesimals", Leibniz made up "derivatives" and someone else made up limits. I had no idea how calculus worked until I understood the origins... sure I could write differential equations based on some cheat-sheet, but that deep-rooted understanding never came along until I walked through Newton's shoes. And to be honest, it was simply the dy/dx notation that made no sense to me, and none of my teachers could explain it to me, it was always "oh, that's the derivative of that axis value" (might as well have said "oh, a monad is a monoid in the category of endofunctors").

On the other hand, learning and doing things without that deep understanding is exactly how I started programming and I turned out okay.

Post reply on HN