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Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Science

beej.us

51–60 of 150 posts

Re: Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Science

#51

Beej taught me networking in c in the early 00s. He will now teach my son computer science in the 20s. The circle of life.

Not my kids, but I also passed my Networking course thanks to his guide (early 10s), and I used it as reference material for teaching about sockets in an Operating Systems course this year.

Sometimes I just love the Internet, man.

Re: Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Science

#52
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 7.3 No Copy-Paste Coding > [...] But nowadays they tend to punt to some AI. Beginning developers should not do this. I don't know how I feel about this. I get the sentiment, I really do. But it almost reads like a chess Grandmaster in the 90s telling up-and-coming players to not practice against Deep Blue because it will teach you bad habits.

> But it almost reads like a chess Grandmaster in the 90s telling up-and-coming players to not practice against Deep Blue because it will teach you bad habits. No idea if chess grandmasters did do that in the 90s, but frankly it would have been good advice. Just as it is good advice today for up-and-coming players not to practice against stockfish, leela or whatever. Unless you are already very proficient in chess, p…

Gukesh, the current world champion, did not use engines for analysis until very late. I think until after he became a GM.

Re: Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Science

#53
On a side note, has anyone noticed the disparity of attitude and level of intensity of dialogue when it comes to AI in different HN posts?

Given that there are many threads where 80% act as if AI would cause second coming I suspected that main topic of discussion here would be "is it worth learning CS at all in 2026?". To my (pleasant) surprise the discussion here is much more "normal". Does anyone suspect that some HN posts have a lot of astroturfing from AI-adjacent organisations?

Re: Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Science

#54

On a side note, has anyone noticed the disparity of attitude and level of intensity of dialogue when it comes to AI in different HN posts? Given that there are many threads where 80% act as if AI would cause second coming I suspected that main topic of discussion here would be "is it worth learning CS at all in 2026?". To my (pleasant) surprise the discussion here is much more "normal". Does anyone suspect that some…

I actually feel like the discussion here has trended relatively negative on AI for the most part.

Things change quickly though, and it makes sense for opinions to, too.

Re: Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Science

#55
post #5

Most reputable CS courses will have one or two math subjects (often called "Discrete Mathematics" or some variation). Does anyone have any advice on tackling subjects like these for someone who hasn't done any math since high school more than a decade ago (and has forgotten it)?

[deleted]

Re: Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Science

#56

On a side note, has anyone noticed the disparity of attitude and level of intensity of dialogue when it comes to AI in different HN posts? Given that there are many threads where 80% act as if AI would cause second coming I suspected that main topic of discussion here would be "is it worth learning CS at all in 2026?". To my (pleasant) surprise the discussion here is much more "normal". Does anyone suspect that some…

My impression is that there is definitely astroturfing around AI, yes

Re: Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Science

#57

On a side note, has anyone noticed the disparity of attitude and level of intensity of dialogue when it comes to AI in different HN posts? Given that there are many threads where 80% act as if AI would cause second coming I suspected that main topic of discussion here would be "is it worth learning CS at all in 2026?". To my (pleasant) surprise the discussion here is much more "normal". Does anyone suspect that some…

HN has become per-thread view-enforced. It's pretty obvious now what the "correct" views are for any given thread, any dissenting comments are downvoted to death. When the next thread comes along, the opposite view might be the "allowed one". There's a particularly egregious amount of veiled partisanship behind a lot of posting too.

This could be a group think phenomenon, or it could be botting. Hard to say. I'd say in at least a few cases, it's someone with access and interest into bot downvotes landing on a thread and using that to suppress dissenting views.

Re: Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Science

#58
post #25

> So, while it’s clearly possible to have a career in a lucrative field you dislike, it’s (a) going to be harder for you than for people who like it and (b) maybe you should consider a field that you do like? > You gotta want it. Do you want it enough to go through the tremendous amount of effort it takes to learn it? Maybe you hate programming, but you want the money enough. Maybe you don’t care about the money, but…

There's also a huge difference between liking to program and liking to work as a programmer. I despise the latter as business programming takes the joy out of everything. Trying to educate management about the current boundaries of the product or having to work extra hard because a product manager promised features that dont yet exist is exhausting. Not being allowed to work on fixing tech debt while having to build…

I think this is just the nature of paid work, though. Academics are generally in love with their topic, and very much not in love with the kind of admin busywork that they have to spend much of their working hours doing.

Re: Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Science

#59

Beej taught me networking in c in the early 00s. He will now teach my son computer science in the 20s. The circle of life.

Beej has been a stable reference for me for decades, also. By applying the knowledge gained in his networking guide, I've won many contracts for work that others considered too difficult (or "impossible" in the budget constraints) .. but which I managed to deliver, on time and under budget, because Beej had led the way.

Easily one of my top 5 favourite people on the Internet, alongside Linus Torvalds and so on.. I would say Beejs' impact on technology has been understated but definitely an order of magnitude or two greater than most.

Re: Beej's Guide to Learning Computer Science

#60
I have used the guide when at college and it was an extremely good read at the time. Learnt so much. I should probably buy a printed copy.

Being that said, at the moment I'm trying to implement a simple non-blocking TLS server in Python with a custom protocol (no external deps, only built-ins) and couldn't find a single guide online that treats the topic. Having read the Python documentation it appears that there are a lot of nuances and pitfalls to correctly implement it. This was my impression after reading the docs, though I could be wrong.

I haven't checked if current Beej's guide covers the topic, in case it doesn't, did anyone embarked in doing this with success?

The Python docs on the topic: https://docs.python.org/3/library/ssl.html#ssl-nonblocking

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