Hacker CS: The Khan Academy of Computer Science. | Hacker News Reader

Hacker CS: The Khan Academy of Computer Science.

hackercs.com

218 points_2ual76 comments

What is remarkable about Khan Academy is that it was done. It was a huge effort. And it was done from scratch, out of nothing. Not in order to promote some crapware like Silverlight or Flash, but with commitment to teach poor people.

Collecting videos around the net and put it in one page is useless idea. There are plenty of really great courses from MIT, Yale, Berkeley and they were already aggregated on sites like academicearch.

And of course, no one could ever beat 6.001 from MIT ^_^ It is art. Btw, if you like to improve your education in CS courses from MIT are enough. For general education visit Yale. For everything else there is Berkeley. CS69A is a masterpiece.

Don't forget Stanford: http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx. Their intro to programming courses are some of the best.

I wish they had the new 107 on there. It's a very different course now (all C and assembly). Unfortunately the Stanford Center for Professional Development does most of the video taping now and is very resistive to putting videos online because they make something like $1k from people who pay just to watch the videos and $5k from people who are officially enrolled and get exams and assignments and such.

Luckily, there are some newer recordings at http://openclassroom.stanford.edu/MainFolder/HomePage.php

I hear 161 (Algorithms) is a great class. 229 (Machine Learning) is supposed to be pretty good too.

I started with MIT's [Open Courseware] Intro to Programming... got me very interested in learning more about CS.

Harvard's CS50 is a good course too.

Agreed, especially for anyone lacking in experience. You get broad language exposure (C, JS, PHP, some SQL) and some great introductory problem sets.

> What is remarkable about Khan Academy is that it was done. It was a huge effort.

So true. It is the completeness that is the most impressing.

What is CS69A? My google search didnt return anything relevant other than this page itself.

That must have been a typo; the course is CS61A.

As one commenter brought up, I think you need to keep in mind who you are targeting. The real brilliance about Khan Academy, in my mind, is that they aren't just another video tutorial repository. They have a sophisticated back-end tracking system that allows teachers and parents to gauge the level of comprehension the students are working at.

The other thing to note about Khan, is that the site is precisely intended for younger students in an effort to give them a solid foundational backing for further study.

Personally, I don't think we need another resource for experienced developers. Experienced developers have a level of understanding that already allows them to be more critical of the tools and resources they choose. If you're truly interested in following the Khan model, you should be focusing on the core fundamentals that are often taken for granted in many of the other resources. That's not to say that you couldn't expand to more advanced topics, but starting at the lowest level and working up would be more beneficial in my eyes.

Anyhow, interested to see what you get up there. Cheers!

Come on, you guys could've at least not done the robot voices on the intro video. A blackboard with some emotinoal statments regarding pointers or even a "reflection" joke would've been more like it. It'd be a neat idea and I'd follow up only if you promise that robotic kittens will not be involved in any of the lectures :-P

Rest assured that no "robotic kittens" are involved in the production of the tutorials. That promo video was my form of working on a limited monetary, manpower and time budget. When you're still a student and the only one working on a project (and more interested in creating the videos than promoting them), you get something of this kind.

That said, the interface and video seem to have been appealing enough for people to sign up en-mass (and for you to call us "you guyS" where in reality it should have been merely "you" ;) )

Now I feel I have to say it: I've started a YouTube Channel inspired by the Khan Academy (in spanish). It's not like Hacker CS, though. I'm targetting only guys who want to program and don't know how to start, not future CS students. In my opinion, that is closer in spirit to the Khan Academy.

I have only C++ right now but there are already 136 videos (and 227 subscribers). And I've gotten some very nice comments, and that makes me very happy.

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/user/paueky

There is a companion site, which shows the dependency graph between videos: http://minidosis.org/C++

Looking forward to seeing this tool launch!

May take a bit before it has all the resources that can currently be found in the YouTube tutorials, but I can see it getting there in a short time...

This guy has a full range (and a good rep) of CS tutorials: http://www.thenewboston.com/. Maybe you could contact him and collab.

Keep us posted :-)

Thanks! Will do. His focus seems more on practical matters (software development) than theoretical aspects, but I sure have a lot to learn from him.

Okay, dumb question, which languages will you teach the concepts through? Does the list by any chance include a lisp dialect?

If the app is going to built similar to Khan, my guess is there will be videos (with progressions) for several languages and dialects. I have no inside info - and stand to be corrected - but Khan offers a wide web (not as in interwebs) of sub-categories that branch out to a sizable spectrum, so I am guessing hackercs.com will too (within the field of 'CS').

Will it be under a Creative Commons license like the Khan Academy? That would make a lot more people want to contribute.

Making those videos is just a passion I have. Not particularly looking to make money out of it, so I'm definitely going to explore that option.

Great, youtube has an option for licensing videos with CC now.

You can still make money with CC.

already done. http://codeschool.org/core-units/ or http://www.youtube.com/user/briantwill

Another good resource: http://www.reddit.com/r/carlhprogramming/comments/9nz5s/welc...

I never realized before how well a Reddit style conversation could work as a lecture format. Very short "lecture" part, then lots of comments with people trying different things, asking questions, and getting answers both from their peers and the "lecturer". Very simple, but very effective.

That's programming. I'm hoping these CS videos are more about data structures, algorithms, theory of computation, introduction to machine learning, language compilation, etc.

I don't find either of these to be very similar to Khan. My favorite things about Khan are the lengths and speed.

But "already done" comments are usually incorrect and short-sighted.

Unfortunately the signup logic considers a "+" in an email address field to be an invalid email address.

That's embarrassing :$ I guess that's what happens when you take ready-made templates from themeforest ;) I'll see if I can fix that... Thanks for pointing it out though.

Thanks! :)

I encountered that problem too, came all the way here, signed in, and look somebody beat me to the punch :-)

We've all been there. +1 for ThemeForest. Non-design oriented programmer's best friend :D

Oddly, it doesn't mind top-level domains or names containing any of: !'"$^*=

It does care about: +#%()

Seems pretty arbitrary.

I'm sorry but you are not the "Khan Academy of CS" until you actually have a product. There is nothing on the site yet. It's an idea, a concept, a theory. I don't like this trend of launching while you haven't developed anything.

What's the targeted difficulty level here? My experience with other Khan Academy videos is that they may be fine for a sophomore or junior year high schooler but their advanced topics are very lacking or generalized. How much CS will actually be taught here? How will it compete with things like Google Code University? http://code.google.com/edu/algorithms/index.html

I'd say undergraduate university education in CS. Most students in fact are only exposed to CS in college, so it'd be the basics they get there. A good review for seniors, an excellent introduction for students from high school, and a quick refresher for programming interviewee candidates.

Well, many of the high school kids in the world are getting less than nothing about CS in school: anything is good.

That's a sample of the videos: http://www.youtube.com/Agilowen

Please license them as CC SA or similar.

I'm a huge fan of Khan Academy, so I hope that your site will do the name justice. Now I can't imagine that Khan would have a problem, but you should be careful when relating your site with others like this. Some people might think that you're actually aligned with Khan Academy.

You are right. I've come to realize that the reason the site has garnered the attention it has thus far is mainly due to the comparison to Khan Academy. Otherwise, such services already exist (although one could argue that their execution leaves something to be desired).

The only reason I used Khan Academy in the slogan was to get the idea closer to mind (and to do it with as few words as possible). But the effect has been far more powerful than anticipated.

I'm really wondering now if I should remove any allusion to Khan Academy from the page. What do you think?

Added a disclaimer about the non-affiliation.

THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE

I would recommend you give Khan a shout (if you can find an email or phone number for him) and see what he thinks. It's always possible that he might (at some point, not necessarily now) be interested in adding a CS section to Khan Academy.

I'll admit that you're right, the reason I click on the link was because of the comparison to Khan Academy.

<aol>I second this.</aol> Khan Academy already has sections on finance, history, etc. why not CS? That way you could stand on the shoulders of the infrastructure and focus on you content.

Here you go: http://www.khanacademy.org/about/the-team

There is an email address for 'Feature Requests'.

The typical "hacker" ethos these days (out with the old, re-invent the wheel, everything taught in college is a waste of time etc) seems to be almost the antithesis of classical computer science, so I'm not sure I get the juxtaposition of the two in the name of the site.

http://files.0xf.nl/images/Screenshot-Hacker%20CS%20is%20the... I'd sort that font out. But wicked idea :)

Oh, font aliasing in chrome Linux. So much could/should be said.

For most things it's pretty damn nice.

I sure hope that the videos are not based on the same computer generated speech.

You can find some good lectures on the ArsDigital University Archive http://www.aduni.org/courses/ I liked the Theory of Computation lecture.

Same here, used that lecture when my prof failed to explain the pumping lemma properly.

I've put my email down.

Hopefully this is more about the fundamentals and theory of Computer Science, since there is a lot elsewhere online if you want to learn how to program.

Somebody else mentioned the format, and I would request that the videos are short and concise. It would also be nice if there were audiobook versions since I could listen to this on the way to and from work, although then you would have to make sure the visual part does not contain information that's not audible.

Sounds cool! I'm excited to see how it works out.

Some notes from the video I saw on YouTube. Needs better audio quality. Bigger fonts for the computer typing would be nicer, the existing size was just legible. It would be nice to see the diagram and code on screen at the same time rather than switching back and forth. I liked the 5 minute length, that is just long enough.

Poor audio quality noted. I'll be getting myself a better microphone. That particular video (with the computer typing) is in HD and can go up to 720p. But it's very easy to increase the font in notepad++, and I'll be doing that. As to switching back and forth, the diagrams, notes and code will be available for download and so users will be able to follow along on their computers (and maybe even directly from the web app). Thanks for the feedback!

Starting with a quick discussion of NIH syndrome.

Hopefully this will answer my Quora question: http://www.quora.com/Is-there-anything-like-Khan-Academy-but...

This is extremely exciting to me! I've worked in a couple programming classes but am mainly self taught (and no where near as good as I want to be) so I'm really excited to go through these! Thank you!

Anybody else find the video creepy? Watching this seems reassuring that the uncanny valley is very very very far away. :)

A great idea. Will you be making your own lectures or linking to the lectures from MIT OCW, Stanford etc.

I quickly skipped through the video & it looks nice:) although I don't like the sound of the voice

Thanks! That would be my voice btw :) But I'm looking for more people to help out in producing the content. It's a one man thing so far.

As I'm sure just about everyone here would tell you, we'd be more than happy to help you.

The voice seems fine, but the audio is awful. I am slightly hard of hearing, and trying to listen to what is actually being said would take away from the point of the lectures.

Maybe they can be salvaged with some post-processing where the voice is bumped up.

I'll keep that in mind. Given the interest, I'll make sure to get myself a professional grade microphone for future videos :)

Are you using a regular microphone? I would imagine that a decent one would do the job, but your current one makes it sound that you are shouting from the bathroom or something. :)

I think a cheap headset would do just fine. Sal Khan doesn't use anything expensive.

I don't hold the microphone to my mouth, but simply put it on my desk. That's to prevent it from picking up my "pops". I need to start using a pop filter.

I'm in school for CS right now, so I'll be sure to complement with these videos as well.

Thanks!

You don't have an email listed on your profile. Please get in touch (or let us know of your email). Thanks!

Its a great idea. Ready for the movement from idea to implementation.

Great idea! I'm looking forward to your launch.

nit-picky but "sign up to be notified" text, looks like a text-input field. changing the box-shadow to outside will help.

This sounds awesome. Can't wait.

Awesome ... no more school!

choke SICP.

And it works in bright sunlight and doesn't require batteries.

On a more serious note, Khan Academy is great but the format allows too many distractions. I'd like to see a paper version of it.

If you log into the main page, you will only get achievement points, if you keep the lecture tab open. Pretty smart way to amend it with incentives. :)

You get achievement points there now? Crazy world oO

Xtranormal. Really? Can't take this seriously, I laugh so hard at TTS

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