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Comment by pamelafox | Hacker News Reader

I'm Pamela, from Khan Academy. I worked with Cormen and Balkcom on the curriculum over the summer, and learned a lot myself while creating it (I don't remember my uni ever talking about Big-Theta!). I hope that this curriculum will be useful for the range of people interested in algorithms, from high schoolers to engineers studying for interviews.

If you have feedback on any of the coding challenges, please click "Report a problem". The automated graders start off strict, and I adjust those based on student feedback.

If you have feedback about other parts, please email compsci-feedback at khanacademy.org or pamela @.

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YES! Thanks so much for helping put this together.

I've spent a lot of time looking for valuable resources on Algorithms, Data Structures, and other CS theory concepts. CLRS was highly recommended but without a technical background, I wasn't able to dive in as quickly as I hoped. A few days ago, I purchased a copy of Algorithms Unlocked [1] which was described as a "prequel" to CLRS. This review in particular grabbed my attention: "The people who will get the most out of this book are self-taught programmers who have never taken a course in algorithms but who nevertheless need to know this material." Hopefully there isn't too much overrlap :)

BTW, the crytopgraphy & information theory units [2] also look promising.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Unlocked-Thomas-H-Cormen/dp...

[2] https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science

Yes, Cormen thinks that Algorithms Unlocked is actually a much better book for the crowd that would likely use this content. I put more links in this article at the end, with recommendations from someone who runs an Algorithms study group for mostly self-taught programmers: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/algor...

The crypto one has a lot of well done videos by Brit Cruise, I've been going through that one personally myself. The info theory is also done by Brit and likely just as cool. There is no programming in either of those, though you can see how they programmed a few visualizations.

Just a note I thought might be useful. I am a self-taught programmer as well and personally, I found the O'reilly 'Algorithms in a nutshell'[1] book excellent as both a learning resource as well as reference. Also, it is a /much/ smaller book with a '...focus on application, rather than theory...' and /complete/ working code.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Nutshell-In-OReilly/dp/0596...

Will a transcript or text alternative be available for these videos? (or can I help in creating one?)

How does this course compare with http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput...?

There will be one! Although there's only a single video (the introduction) - everything else is text or an interactive program. The intro video is being fed to our translators/transcribers now and should be up soon!

Oh - and as a comparison to the MIT course, probably the biggest differences is that (upon a quick review): There are no lectures and no textbooks. Everything is available online and there are tons of interactive projects to complete.

Edit: If you are interested in providing transcription or translation of the single video this is where you can help! http://www.amara.org/en/videos/muCpy2w3ZIH5/info/what-is-an-... Thanks for the offer :)

Oops! I misunderstood - I'm used to the video-heavy maths tutorials. Thanks for letting me know.

There is only one video, everything else is in article format, with embedded diagrams and visualizations.

From looking at the video list (http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput...), that one looks like it focuses a lot on data structures - which we don't talk much about, at least not in what we've released so far. The professors hope to add more over the coming months.

I'd say they're complimentary, do them both!

What is the Khan Academy approach to article vs. video formats? IMO, lessons with video introductions then a hybrid of text with interactive exercises as the bulk of the lesson would be ideal.

Is KA working towards an ideal combination of methods or are you guys experimenting depending on the topic?

It really depends upon the subject matter - we're experimenting! For Computer Science/programming education we've been pushing more towards the text/interactive exercise direction. Art History is almost all text and videos (with little interaction). Math is almost all video and exercises (no text).

We also have pieces like Cryptography and Information Theory which are video heavy and have some interactive portions: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/crypt... https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/infor...

Hope you find some of them interesting!

This summer my kids (elementary & middle school) did the Intro to JS and Advanced JS courses. They really got hooked due to interactive creativity and video lessons. The audio narrative was really fun and kept them interested. Therefore, videos and especially the audio narrative style in Intro to JS is something I would vote for and hope that Khan academy continues that even (and especially) for CS courses.

I will definitely keep doing talk-throughs when we are teaching syntax- like for the HTML/CSS and SQL curriculum that we're releasing this week. I experiment with articles for when the teaching isn't focused on syntax but is more conceptual/high-level (including in the Advanced JS series, which is all articles).

This is awesome, as someone going through the interview process this will be my go-to for reviewing.

Also, thanks for coming to HackSC! Your talk was great and I think it really inspired a lot of people who were new to the hackathon scene.

Thanks so much! :)

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