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

Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

threadreaderapp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 506 posts

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#211

Post by nitwit005 »

wnoise wrote: post #3

> CS programs have, in the main, not decided that the primary path to becoming a programmer should involve doing material actual programming. Well, that's because CS programs are designed to teach CS, not to be a vocational school for programmers.

Not sure that's an accurate comparison. We make the English majors do a ton of writing, the art majors produce a lot of art, and no one seems to have any issue assigning a lists of problems to math majors as homework.

I suspect there is just a cultural issue, where the CS faculty doesn't want to do that style of teaching. I had a professor hand out debugging assignments because that was part of the industry feedback they'd gotten, but only the one professor listened to the feedback.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#212

Post by brucephillips »

drittich wrote: post #207
brucephillips wrote: post #172

> Your idea is not valuable, at all. All value is in the execution. This is wrong, and I'm surprised it's repeated so often. Some ideas are better than others. If you doubt this, ask yourself if, when starting a company, you would choose a random idea or your best idea. Of course you would choose your best idea, which implies ideas have different value. EDIT: I'm happy to debate this point with anyone who would other…

To recast what you are saying to remain congruent with the original premise, one might say ideas can have different potential value.

By that rephrasing, execution also only has potential value, since the value is only realized in conjunction with a good idea.

So if you want to keep any useful definition of "valuable", you have to concede that ideas can be valuable.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#213

Post by wvenable »

wnoise wrote: post #3

> CS programs have, in the main, not decided that the primary path to becoming a programmer should involve doing material actual programming. Well, that's because CS programs are designed to teach CS, not to be a vocational school for programmers.

Don't worry most CS programs aren't designed to teach CS either. They teach a random assortment of technical material that is neither terribly difficult nor terribly relevant.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#214

Post by majormajor »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #201
JepZ wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Parent showed them a generalist skill set and they saw a lack of professionalism. Yeah, thats part of the pattern. Generalists often do not appear as professional as specialists (which does not mean that everybody who looks unprofessional is a generalist).

Right. And believe me, I'm not the pinnacle of professionalism, but I have core values of respect and a motivation to do work that people find valuable. Last time I checked they are pretty well intact. I believe this person mistook specialism and accolades for professionalism.

I think there's a difference of terms. Wanting to work 20-40 hours a month on stuff you like instead of "giving into a job" sounds pretty far from what most people are going to consider "a professional" (you work on what the job needs at the present, with standard hours, that they pay for).

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#215

Post by brucephillips »

chubot wrote: post #164

The hardest problem in B2C is distribution. The hardest problem in B2B is sales. AppAmaGooBookSoft are AppAmaGooBookSoft primarily because they have mortal locks on distribution. I agree with this, but I think it's interesting. Wasn't the Internet supposed to democratize distribution? All someone has to do is go to your website. And anybody can set up a website. So it seems like the Internet just shifted the goal pos…

> AppAmaGooBookSoft are AppAmaGooBookSoft primarily because they have mortal locks on distribution.

Well, first of all, this isn't true. Google and FB aren't so profitable because of a distribution monopoly. They're profitable due to network effects.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#216

Post by tikhonj »

dsp1234 wrote: post #142
tikhonj wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, they do a pretty bad job teaching CS too. Your average undergrad program is almost entirely learning about CS, not learning CS. A non-trivial of students get through a CS degree never doing anything novel in CS —a real shame because, unlike math, research-level CS problems are eminently accessible to undergrads. It doesn't even have to be "real" research: I just expect more than classes which have you reg…

Your average undergrad program... CS degree never doing anything novel in CS Is this different than any other field? I was under the impression that most BS programs do not require novel research. That doesn't come until post graduate courses.

I don't necessarily mean publishable—that's doable but difficult in CS—but novel in the sense of requiring non-trivial creativity and insight within the field rather than replaying things you were taught directly.

An example might be writing a compiler for a language you design with features not covered in the book. It's probably not publishable, but it is doing CS in a way that just following instructions in a book or from lectures to write a compiler isn't.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#217

Post by scarecrowboat »

chubot wrote: post #164

The hardest problem in B2C is distribution. The hardest problem in B2B is sales. AppAmaGooBookSoft are AppAmaGooBookSoft primarily because they have mortal locks on distribution. I agree with this, but I think it's interesting. Wasn't the Internet supposed to democratize distribution? All someone has to do is go to your website. And anybody can set up a website. So it seems like the Internet just shifted the goal pos…

I think it's that the goal posts have shifted, i.e. distribution used to be the bottleneck for alot of people but now that it's easy (for internet businesses) there's a new bottleneck.

There's so much stuff on the internet that it's a problem of discovery, which is why Google became so dominant.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#218

Post by bonestamp2 »

I like this format/premise a lot... it allows you the freedom to say things you find insightful without the risk of some know-it-all coming along and telling you it's obvious. We should do more of this -- nearly everything is going to seem obvious to someone else, but those people should just keep their mouth closed and keep looking for something they didn't know.

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#219

Post by majormajor »

ramses0 wrote: post #187
jogjayr wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because they are not allowed to use IQ tests There's actual employment law that prohibits using IQ tests? I'd never heard that before

It's related to anti-discrimination / "psychology-test" laws. If there is any sort of "test" given as a condition of employment, it must be relevant, standardized, non-biased, reviewed by specialists and approved, etc. http://cdn8.openculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Test1... The value and definition of "IQ" is widely disputed and generally seen as of limited relevance to the actual work and performance of that…

One day I wonder if some lawyer will strike it big by making an argument that looking at universities is discrimination because e.g. family connections and wealth give you a big leg up in getting into certain elite schools...

Re: Things Many People Find Too Obvious to Have Told You Already

#220

Post by brucephillips »

psyc wrote: post #65
swamp40 wrote: post #58

> Your idea is not valuable, at all. All value is in the execution. Then why did Amazon patent the concept of a drone that will fly to your car and recharge it?

Because patents are valuable. Specifically, blocking others from executing.

Patents first require an idea to be patented, so if patents are valuable, ideas are valuable.
Post reply on HN