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Comment by cloogshicer | Hacker News Reader

I honestly don't understand why people keep recommending CS50. Maybe I'm just a slow learner, but I really think that if I had had to learn programming with that course, I would never have learned it - the learning curve is really steep, and it crams way too many languages into a very short amount of time, making you a jack of all trades and a master of none. I also don't understand the obsession of CS curricula to have people implement things like sorting algorithms by hand. This would've really put me off as a beginner.

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> making you a jack of all trades and a master of none.

- it's not about learning a language

- I don't think it's crammed either - it covers a lot but everything is explained in a very accessible way from first principles

- if an introductory course was using only one language, you still wouldn't master the language

- being exposed to different ways to do the same thing is very valuable and very underrated for beginners imo because it teaches you to abstract over concepts - when you learn how to read a file, write a loop, sort an array in each one of C/Python/JS, you develop better understanding of the concept of reading/looping/sorting instead of thinking that the only way to do it is the way your first language does it; you begin to develop a sense of which concepts are language-specific and which ones carry over across languages. I think it's better if this understanding happens early instead of late.

> I really think that if I had had to learn programming with that course, I would never have learned it

This is one of the most common misconceptions in general with educational institutions and the general software engineering job market.

Programming is not Computer Science.

Computer science teaches you how computers work, concepts of how encryption works, concepts of security, concepts of memory management, and so forth. More recently computer programming has been added as a part of Computer Science degrees, but actually just a decade or so ago (when I was going through it), you could graduate with Computer Science degree without programming experience at all.

There is no doubt that learning computer science makes you a better programmer, but it is different and it is possible to be a good programmer without it.

Programming is one of the practical applications that benefit from strong computer science knowledge. Just like how taking a human anatomy course or a biology course doesn't train you to become a doctor. But it's pretty important knowledge needed for doctors to be good at their jobs (so much so that we don't let people practice medicine without it).

Quoting someone else in this thread:

> Harvard’s course seems to be aimed at people who are coders or want to be better at coding, so you learn about different languages, algorithms/data structures, SQL and such.

CS50 is definitely somewhere between "comp sci course" and a "get coding quick" bootcamp.

What Computer Science programs were you aware of where someone could graduate with no programming experience? I am unaware of any.

I’ve never heard of one. I refuse to believe a self respecting CS program would let people through without taking some kind of computer organization/low level programming type class where you _at least_ program in some C.

this whole "low-level" thing and C-elitism is very off-putting to the smart folks like us--who are not stuck in the past and want to get on with the future. You don't need low level details to program well--you need a good language like APL, to truly learn how to program.

> smart folks like us--who are not stuck in the past and want to get on with the future

The future has pointers and memory allocation, even if you want to pretend it’s to there and leave the complexity to other smart folks.

> You don't need low level details to program well--you need a good language like APL, to truly learn how to program

We’re not talking about a programming degree. We’re talking about a computer science degree.

@l33t2328 programming IS the language and method of expression in computer science. I agree that pointers and mem alloc is necessary if you want to do research in CS and will continue to be so in the future, but as far as programming (post 2022) is concerned, I don't see why any sane person would want to "get down to bare metal", given the improvements in hardware and language design.

programming is not computer science--but it is the language of computer science.

> making you a jack of all trades and a master of none

This is exactly the point of any introductory college level course. They're never intended to be the end of your education, they're designed to be a broad introduction to most of the different concepts that you will be learning throughout the program.

Even if you're not taking the rest of the program, having a broad overview as a starting point is valuable. You won't "master" anything in 3 months no matter what you do, so starting by going deep just needlessly limits your perspective on how much there is to learn.

CS50 is really good, and the instructor is real rockstar, not a shame to recommend it too. Guess many people expected a course like Codecademy with `print 'Programming is fun!'`.

The instructor is definitely great. Me, however, I prefer to learn in a bit of a slower style, with less distracting acting/performing.

All of these are compelling reasons to take this course. I do believe you've talked me into it.

I remember learning mergesort as a beginner was a really eye-opening experience. Going through the progression of sorting algorithms seems like a perfect way to showcase the power of algorithms- they are easy to implement and are used everywhere. It's easy to forget how magical recursive algorithms are to the uninitiated.

> making you a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Master of a single programming language is a moot concept, it either boils through to other languages or you just memorized the syntax really well.

This is going too far in the other direction. There are absolutely people who have mastered e.g. Java, CPP or whatever with language-specific knowledge. Being an expert on JVM internals won't boil through to Haskell.

Well, being a master of JVM internals does give you a very strong grasp on a very useful basket of concepts for GC and programming language implementations, so I'm not sure I would necessarily agree that there's no transferable overlap. But regardless, neither of these are applicable metaphors for a 101 level CS class—at the introductory level, you're better getting a broader survey of lots of different languages, because learning the transferable fundamentals is more important than learning the specific "trivia" of any particular language.

JVM is essentially project knowledge, if you're writing code that requires you to understand JVM internals really well, unless you're working on JVM directly, something is wrong within the division of labor. Programming with java requires no internal JVM knowledge bare the bare minimal surface ones (execution args, etc).

Why? If you're working on a performance critical application, you need that knowledge. Plenty of HFT firms use Java.

What's the reasoning behind picking Java for a performance critical application over something like C or C++?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12051639

We do have CLR, BEAM, HaLVM, and LLVM. Understanding the JVM translates to understanding similar architectures.

Are you saying that beginners should always be taught multiple languages? Why?

That's the whole point of the course. It's designed to be a catchall introduction to CS.

Learning Programming != Learning CS

My experience was the opposite. I went in with absolutely no programming experience. It took me a week to figure out how to do the first problem set (boy are loops ever amazing).

CS50 got me interested enough in programming to pursue it as a career. I have a CS degree now, and work at a well known tech company.

I don’t think the audience is “people who know some programming already.” It is designed for absolute beginners and assumes very little about your prior programming knowledge. I recommend it to any beginner looking to see what computer science is about.

Agreed. I also didn't like CS50 very much, and I wouldn't recommend it to folks. I think people love it because it's entertaining.

Has it occurred to you that your dislike for it may be due to the fact that you're not the target audience, rather than that there's a problem with the course? In your previous comment (since deleted), you noted that you had been programming for a few years before you tried it. It's an introduction to the subject, so you were bound to find a lot of it to be beneath you.

In my own experience working with a lot of brand new programmers, making the subject entertaining is 80% of the battle. Most introductions to CS are unbearably dry and do a very very poor job of motivating further study. The job of an introductory course is to give an overview of what you'll learn going forward and make you want to learn those things, and by all accounts (even yours) CS50 does that.

It absolutely has occurred to me that I'm not the target audience. That said, I still think there's a problem with the course in as much as I don't agree with the method selected.

In other words, CS50 is probably great if it is the one and only course a new person would take. This is due to the broad focus on so many concepts.

However, if it is the first out of many courses, I would not choose such broad focus. I would (and have done many times) create a curriculum based on the student's needs and desires.

That's why I don't like CS50. It's not because I'm not the target audience necessarily, it's that CS50 is overhyped and, in my humble opinion, not suited to be the first course for serious self learners.

By not suited, I mean that there are a number of specifications on Coursera that are a) also free, and b) will lead one better to the goal if the goal is known (which is where most newbies need a mentor). I do not mean that CS50 is unsuitable; I mean that it is suboptimal. In my experience, that is.

Thanks for the substantive reply! It's good to get a different perspective.

I think you may be right about it being suboptimal for self learners. It was, after all, not really designed for that. I disagree that the breadth of the course is a flaw.

One major problem I consistently see with self-taught individuals (including myself before college) is that they have major blind spots, places where they don't know what they don't know. A broad introductory course that intentionally doesn't restrict itself to topics the student is already interested in is the best way I know to quickly turn those unknown unknowns into known unknowns. Whether or not the student chooses to fill those gaps in later with further courses, they'll be better for knowing where the gaps are.

you are right, CS50 is just a mish-mash without a clear focus and a timeline and action-plan for "what's next".

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