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

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

udacity.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 54 posts

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

#31

Post by psykotic »

viscanti wrote: post #13
marcovaldo wrote: post #9

Will Udacity courses be accredited? Will their accreditation be taken seriously? If not them, then some new startup in this space will be. They will spike the money-hose directed at HarvardYaleOxfordCambridge.

With version control software like git (and especially github), and the ability for anyone to build anything on their own, accreditation doesn't matter much. Not every company agrees, but enough do that it's not a big deal. The real question is "can you do the job", and with programming, it's not too difficult to show that you can, if you can.

> With version control software like git, ..., accreditation doesn't matter much.

Mr Markov, I presume?

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

#32

Post by Reebz »

graeme wrote: post #27
ohyes wrote: post #26

The nice thing about college is that it provides an easy way to find a lot of other smart people who are about your age. Also, teaching someone else solidifies knowledge a lot more quickly than straight lecture or exercises. So it is too bad to me that there is no social aspect of this course and these types of programs. Udacity study group on google+ or whatnot would be neat.

Actually, the Udacity courses have very active forums. There is a good mix of experienced programmers and absolute beginners...if I ever have a problem, I usually have an answer within 5-10 minutes, and I get to return the favour frequently.

I understand this is the digital age, but I personally wouldn't put forums and socializing on campus in the same value category.

Both points are valid, but I think we need to accept there are pros and cons, rather than comparing apples and oranges.

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

#33

Post by graeme »

Reebz wrote: post #32
graeme wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the Udacity courses have very active forums. There is a good mix of experienced programmers and absolute beginners...if I ever have a problem, I usually have an answer within 5-10 minutes, and I get to return the favour frequently.

I understand this is the digital age, but I personally wouldn't put forums and socializing on campus in the same value category. Both points are valid, but I think we need to accept there are pros and cons, rather than comparing apples and oranges.

On campus socializing is obviously quite different. I was responding to this:

"So it is too bad to me that there is no social aspect of this course and these types of programs. Udacity study group on google+ or whatnot would be neat."

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

#34

Post by ohyes »

eddie_the_head wrote: post #30
ohyes wrote: post #26

The nice thing about college is that it provides an easy way to find a lot of other smart people who are about your age. Also, teaching someone else solidifies knowledge a lot more quickly than straight lecture or exercises. So it is too bad to me that there is no social aspect of this course and these types of programs. Udacity study group on google+ or whatnot would be neat.

There is actually a very active social aspect to these Coursera and Udacity etc courses. You clearly haven't signed up yet, check out the forums for each class that are very active, the subreddits (main hub is at /r/OnlineEducation), and the many IRC channels (main hub is #free-class on Freenode). These act as effective study groups with people helping and discussing with each other many things about the courses at h…

I think I will sign up and try it out knowing this.

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

#35

Post by angrycoder »

ohyes wrote: post #26

The nice thing about college is that it provides an easy way to find a lot of other smart people who are about your age. Also, teaching someone else solidifies knowledge a lot more quickly than straight lecture or exercises. So it is too bad to me that there is no social aspect of this course and these types of programs. Udacity study group on google+ or whatnot would be neat.

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.

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

#36

Post by randomdata »

marcovaldo wrote: post #15
viscanti wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With version control software like git (and especially github), and the ability for anyone to build anything on their own, accreditation doesn't matter much. Not every company agrees, but enough do that it's not a big deal. The real question is "can you do the job", and with programming, it's not too difficult to show that you can, if you can.

I think we can agree most people reading this site and competing in the startup space know accreditation isn't too important. Aside from us, there is the 99.999% of the professional workspace where this idea is heretical. For them, a reasonably credible system of accreditation carries a lot of weight. The post-Uni startup that addresses these concerns will take most of the pot.

"The post-Uni startup that addresses these concerns will take most of the pot."

I don't know. It will be pretty interesting to see how it plays out. It was said above that Udacity's business model is to connect students with employers, so there will be a big push to make that happen. Contrast that with a school who focuses on accreditation. There will be less push to make sure you are employed at the end. You will, however, have the all important (to 99.999% of the population) accreditation.

If you are going in with the goal to get a job at the end, it seems like the former is going to yield better results, in my humble opinion. And if you are studying the subject just out of enjoyment, neither model matters, because who cares if you have a job or accreditation at the end?

I feel we're a long way from claiming one business model the victor.

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

#37

Post by plinkplonk »

waiwai933 wrote: post #4

Dr. Norvig is no doubt a genius in computer science, and Udacity is certainly looking promising considering that it's able to hire such influential people... but that said, it doesn't look like he has any actual teaching experience, and educating is made up of a different skill set than computer science. Every teacher has to start off having never taught before, but nevertheless, this makes me a little hesitant—are m…

"it doesn't look like [Peter Norvig] has any actual teaching experience"

From his bio, http://norvig.com/resume.html

1985-1986 University of Southern California Assistant Professor

1986-1991 University of California, Berkeley Research Faculty Member

Fwiw, my personal prejudice: Peter Norvig teaches extremely well. I preferred him to Sebastian Thrun in the original AI class. He explains the essence of complex things in a very systematic way, which is what I look for in a teacher, but Norvig's calm and quiet approach (vs say Thrun's more apparent enthusiasm) may not be everyone's ideal.

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

#38

Post by pinchyfingers »

angrycoder wrote: post #35
ohyes wrote: post #26

The nice thing about college is that it provides an easy way to find a lot of other smart people who are about your age. Also, teaching someone else solidifies knowledge a lot more quickly than straight lecture or exercises. So it is too bad to me that there is no social aspect of this course and these types of programs. Udacity study group on google+ or whatnot would be neat.

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.

Yea, exactly. Whenever someone of Norvig's caliber is willing to teach, I shut up pay attention. I wouldn't care if Norvig was teaching how to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I'd have my freaking notebook out scribbling down his recipe.

Despite being a programmer my whole life, I'm taking the Udacity 101 course because you never know how another person's experience with the basics might change your understanding.

Also, is programming a skill that really requires a social element for learning? I've definitely had a lot of fun programming in social settings and in groups, but a lot of the skill is built in the hours of isolation with your fingers on the keyboard.

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

#39

Post by msg »

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 found them very valuable.

Often you are filling in some mostly-working code provided by the instructors. My only quibble is liberal use of globals, which violates some of my instincts about how their code works and causes me to spend more time hunting odd bugs than doing the actual content. On the bright side they usually provide some test harnesses so you're not dead in the water.

I've really enjoyed it so far. Signed up for Norvig and another one next time around.

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

#40

Post by ohyes »

angrycoder wrote: post #35
ohyes wrote: post #26

The nice thing about college is that it provides an easy way to find a lot of other smart people who are about your age. Also, teaching someone else solidifies knowledge a lot more quickly than straight lecture or exercises. So it is too bad to me that there is no social aspect of this course and these types of programs. Udacity study group on google+ or whatnot would be neat.

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 people who have difficult personalities was also useful).

To really get to know someone you have to be in a community with them. I'm not sure that 'social solutions' on the internet would really fulfill this need. They are all the things that you do to kind of numb yourself at the end of the day so you can sleep... there isn't really an intention to engage.

Post reply on HN