gems

I made the comment because I don't think we should be reaching this level of discussion. We should be discussing something like how we're going to help people, rather than giving each other steps on getting employed. I have a tendency in believing there are better and worse motives. Content like this also shifts the attention away from what is actually important.

It's an opinion, you can ignore it.

My opinion is that it (exactly what I stated, nothing more) is most likely a manifestation of insecurity, rather than a product of anything that's not superficial (desire to help people, for example). I'm not telling you how to lead your life (a fiat), I'm offering an opinion with a suggestion. I give zero shits if what I said applies to you and you decide to stay on the same course. You should get that straight.

You should work on redefining your goals if all you're concerned about is working at Google, or at another large company.

Most probably have a functional understanding of it, but do not have an intuition. Is the teaching supposed to provide an intuitive sense of how big certain units are? What difference does it make?

I don't find it offensive, I just find it troubling. The talent can be used more effectively in other areas. This bothers others at varying degrees. I don't believe this has anything to do with my own fears.

I still admit that that psychological effect is real. I'm sure it's true for many circumstances. I just don't think it's applicable to this case.

Why bother?

You're never going to find a book tailored for you that walks you through everything. Pick any book, learn from it, experiment, make mistakes.

Let people take risks. They can die if they'd like.

Everyone should learn about the great philosophical questions.

How are you going to learn theoretical physics by yourself? Lol. Do you have any idea how much math something like string theory uses?

Not this shit again.

"It’s pretty well established that non-science degrees are not necessary for a job. In fact, the degrees cost you too much money, require too long of a commitment,"

The people who choose to get them usually have a passion for the subject. How is the commitment a negative?

>This is actually folly: both vimscript and lisp are both turing complete language (read can both make a computer do everything a computer is capable of doing), so even know LISP might have nicer syntax/cooler paradigm, what have you: it doesn't matter, you can achieve the same thing in VIM Script.

Just because two different things, like two different languages, have the same potential doesn't mean they're equal.

...

How is that confusing? Not recognizing her own face is a special case.

>Constructing these overwrought sentences with the dashes and the semicolons and the vocabulary and whatnot just makes you look like an insecure sophomore trying to cover up inexperience with excessive verbiage.

You're uncomfortable with how somebody speaks, so you call them insecure. Classic.

By the way, there was nothing sophisticated about the content or construction of the parent post. And if there was, maybe you should consider carrying the burden of trying to understand it instead of dragging us down to your idea of how people ought to communicate.

That was completely unnecessary. There's no reason to think that it's a reference to the former in such a context.

It's obvious that things fall towards the center of the earth. Yet, you have hordes of physicists searching for a mathematical reason for why it happens. The point here is that nobody cares whether or not 'it is obvious' to you. Lots of things are obvious to lots of people and most of those things turn out to be false. Only rigorous justification advances our knowledge. You would know all of this if you weren't a complete ignoramus.

No, I think you are just awful at trolling.

>My own experience is that there are PLENTY of programmers who have used, say, PHP and Python, but who you wouldn't want to touch your C codebase in a pair-programming session.

There are plenty of programmers that wouldn't want to touch C to begin with, regardless of past experience. Anyway, why would you ask somebody with no experience in C to develop your C codebase?

>If you've used C++ and C, then sure, you can probably jump to just about any language.

Nope.

>Always remember going from something difficult to simple is easy, but going from something simple to difficult is not easy.

Great. There are plenty of hard working people to make this "piece of wisdom" completely worthless.

>Starting out with Python as a newbie is disastrous.

... why?

They weed the people who don't want to do the work for the classes. That's all. The classes don't necessarily teach practical things. There are only 2-3 classes you have to take which involve "heavy" programming: data structures, operating systems, and the intro course which used to be based on SICP (if that doesn't count, pick one from the required breadth). Ironically, if you take the software engineering course here, you can end up in a group where your entire role is "testing". About a third of the upper division CS classes involve minimal to no programming whatsoever. There are also plenty of nontechnical classes you can take outside of the department which count towards the major.

Also this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5347363

The only thing I asserted in that comment was that you can't ask the computer to help you (effectively) in a naive search when the space is large or infinite. I'm not familiar with how theorem provers work, so I'm most likely wrong anyway.

How does a computer build abstractions on its own?

I can say this happens with undergrads at UC Berkeley.

Give me an example of how this is done or can be done.

Matter for what?

How does a computer help when you have conjectures involving infinite mathematical structures or extremely large numbers? You can't ask the computer to enumerate the solutions for you. You have to reason in a roundabout way, possibly building some abstraction.

Even if there are some branches of mathematics that will be affected by computers, at the end of the day, there will still have to be someone who does the conjecturing, someone with enough knowledge to pose the question to the computer.

I've had similar experiences. It's a curiosity of mine understanding what makes people successful in that kind of environment.

Is it smarts or having a "good" perspective on what to focus on? Or is that the same thing?

The undergraduate computer science program is fucking awful.

1. As you say, the introductory classes are enormous. For the math classes this means less feedback on your assignments. What this also means is that you have other undergrads grading your work. If that doesn't terrify you, then it should.

2. Inadequate preparation. Similar classes in other departments have more prerequisites. I'm currently attending a machine learning class where more than half the class is probability-illiterate. Take a look at how the core math curriculum is taught (algebra, analysis)

3. Professors and graduate students are out of sync about the material and assignments, which leads to situations where nobody can answer your questions. See cs162, cs61c. I've heard similar rumors about 161.

4. Only 5-10 upper division undergraduate cs classes. Interested in type theory? Practical encryption? Computer algebra? You're out of luck. Most other universities seem to offer a lot of variety.

5. Less treatment of the fundamentals. Our systems class no longer goes into any depth about malloc. They've replaced it with a section on map reduce. Similar situation with the operating systems class and I believe the security class.

6. The people who rise to the top are the people who were probably going to be successful anyway. That's just my experience/bias though.

There are downsides to this if you're in STEM: less preparation and rigor.

"What are these abilities and insights you have that no one else has?"

Sometimes the answer to that question is "I don't have any." Or sometimes it's an ability that is not valued (even by yourself).

I too encourage searching, but let's be realistic.