Comment by microtonal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by microtonal | Hacker News Reader

So, what is the best way for a proven and largely self taught developer to take their knowledge to the next level?

It depends on how you learn. Some people will recommend Coursera et al., which are great. I tried some Coursera courses, but found that I found the pace too slow and became bored quickly.

For me, reading always works the best, since I can adjust it to my pace. You could look up a curriculum (as someone else suggests) and compose a reading list from that. Also, there are some works where you really can't go wrong. Some examples:

- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Abelson and Sussman

- Algorithms, Sedgewick, Wayne

- Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation, Hopcroft, Motwani, Ullman

Lesser known, but incredibly fun books:

- Purely Functional Data Structures, Chris Okasaki

- The Reasoned Schemer, Friedman, Byrd, Kiselyov (or a good Prolog book).

After learning the foundations, you could branch out to a subfield that interests you.

(Or as Frank Zappa has bluntly put it: “If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”)

>It depends on how you learn. Some people will recommend Coursera et al., which are great. I tried some Coursera courses, but found that I found the pace too slow and became bored quickly.

You can watch the lectures at 2x speed. ;)

Yeah, but you can't jump to the next lesson - unless you wait until the end of the course and see them all at the time, but then you won't get a certificate because you miss the quiz deadlines.

You can do several courses at the same time if you have the spare time.

One thing I've noticed with Coursera is that if you join before the course starts, there's often a preview button that seems to show at least the entire course's video lectures. If the content was useful enough to you, you could take the time to download all the videos and could watch them at any pace, and since you'd always be ahead because of your quicker pace you could still do the quizzes, albeit not straight after watching the lectures.

You can download the video, and then you can extract the audio and listen to the mp3 wherever you are, as often as you want. At least, that's what I did.

I don't think the OP is in it for the certificates.

The SICP videos are available somewhere and are pretty intense.

SICP Videos - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB63C06FAF154F047

I think the first video in this series is probably the best intro to CS lecture ever.

Any reason to go for Sedgewick and Wayne over CLRS? I haven't read the first one so just curious.

I've read both and they are VERY different algorithms books. Some differences:

* Sedgewick has no proofs in his book (or at least very few). CLRS has a lot of proofs in it.

* CLRS uses pseudocode, while Sedgewick uses actual code. I think they use Java now (it was Pascal in the edition that I had used).

* Sedgewick is really a practitioners introduction. It views the algorithmic problem as the jumping off point. Whereas CLRS is more an intro for people who are going to study computer science -- so it focuses on the methods.

Both good texts. I think for most programmers I'd recommend Sedgewick, but if your goal is to be a computer scientist, then I'd recommend CLRS.

Thanks for the list. I was definitely the type of student that just read the book and didn't go lectures too often. I also love that quote.

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