"I hope computer science never gets into high school curriculum, it will only make students hate programming. "
I'm a bit of touch at 41, but are you sure that it isn't already available as an elective for students? Perhaps you meant making it mandatory, which I agree would probably not be very productive.
I took programming in High School, but back then it was all using BASIC. We learned the concepts of variables, memory, loops, and even simple algorithms. And if we finished our homework ahead of the rest of the class, we got to play games. Quite the motivating factor for me at the time.
A good article, but intimidating, in a way. And I see this quite a bit in terms of budding programmer advice. It boils down to "you need to read this, and then read that, and then read this," and then the comments section will have even more suggestions for reading.
As I get older, and have kids, I find my ability to sit down and read all of this, and somehow retain it, decreasing. I've recently decided to "get back into" coding (won't go into the history as it isn't tangential to the discussion). I've been having some fun with very, very tiny beginner level programs in Ruby. When I build a list of jobs I would want with Ruby involvement, I find I also need to brush up on my Javascript and learn JQuery. I need to get a full understanding of Git/Github. I should also learn Rails and Sinatra, VIM, and get reacquainted with CSS.
On top of that, it really does seem that C is a requirement to really understand what is happening in Ruby. It seems a lot of things that _why_ wrote for Ruby, he wrote in C.
Then there is all the additional readings, such as in this article, and comments section. All of which seem incredibly legit, but leave me feeling like I will never actually find the time to write code due to all the reading I don't have time to do.
This article emphasises the important of building your baseline knowledge on the aspects that haven't changed since the dark ages (and probably aren't likely to for a while). As opposed to learning the flavor of the month web framework that might be yesterday's news a week from now.
Learning about C and how to use a decent debugger/tracing tool will help you track down exactly where those unhelpful errors are being generated. Learning how to listen in on network traffic will help you find out why the foo you sent is arriving as a bar (or not arriving at all). Learning to use the shell opens up a lot of quick reusable operations and automation possibilities.
The books he listed are old, but certainly valuable. I don't think they're going to suddenly go out of date.
On the other hand, how much more reading will you do when you have to learn a new high level language every month to keep up with the latest trend?
However, I wouldn't let this get in the way of doing what you want to do, which is writing code, I guess. Learn bits and pieces as you need them and I think you will see the benefit. Don't let them weigh you down.
"Integrating with Active Directory to some extent, for example, shouldn't be incredibly difficult "
I get confused on this one. I am trying to implement some simple software at work, and the software (not Open Source) is supposed to be LDAP compliant. The Unix admin in charge of the LDAP Directory insists that Active Directory itself isn't LDAP compliant, and that when people gear their software towards Active Directory they "break LDAP."
So far, his comment is correct. The product keeps trying to pull in windows AD objects just because the server is running Windows. Frustrating.
Sorry, I guess my point is, that for some of us, it gets really difficult to figure out who is breaking what in terms of compatibility.
"For most people, computing isn't a political stance or a way of life; it's just another thing they need to use to do their job."
"After Anonymous imposed some very minimal cyber disruptions on Paypal, Master Card and Amazon, the DOJ flamboyantly vowed to arrest the culprits, and several individuals were just arrested as part of those attacks. But weeks earlier, a far more damaging and serious cyber-attack was launched at WikiLeaks, knocking them offline. Those attacks were sophisticated and dangerous. Whoever did that was quite likely part of either a government agency or a large private entity acting at its behest. Yet the DOJ has never announced any investigation into those attacks or vowed to apprehend the culprits, and it's impossible to imagine that ever happening.
Why? Because crimes carried out that serve the Government's agenda and target its opponents are permitted and even encouraged; cyber-attacks are "crimes" only when undertaken by those whom the Government dislikes, but are perfectly permissible when the Government itself or those with a sympathetic agenda unleash them. Whoever launched those cyber attacks at WikiLeaks (whether government or private actors) had no more legal right to do so than Anonymous, but only the latter will be prosecuted."
If you're like me, and sometimes prefer to have some visual with your audio, Berkley also provides webcasts of these lectures. Here, for example, is Spring '08 of CS61A:
I would suspect that the density leading to more walking also aids greatly in that guideline, much like the denser US cities on the East Coast.
My wife's grandmother lives in Den Hague, and she has a Great Aunt who lives in a tiny town called Terneuzen (which apparently I never pronounced correctly, judging by native reaction). Two years ago, we went all over Holland, starting with a few days in Amsterdam. The biking culture was quite the shock to the system. Not just people biking to and from work, but everywhere. I remember riding trains and seeing bike lanes between cities. Kind of a revelation to me. I found it completely fascinating. The bike racks overflowed with so many bikes that I have no idea how folks keep track of where they left their bike.
I've unfortunately let my tech skills get rusty by moving into a project management position these last few years, and I don't speak Dutch. That said, I would immigrate there in heart beat if I could figure out a way to do so that wouldn't break our finances (I'm trying to get up to speed on Ruby to perhaps the point where I could consult/work remotely). Everything just seemed to make sense in that country, very logical people. Not only the biking, but their attitude towards social programs and families I found very refreshing.
If you're interested in biking more often, the easiest way is to ensure that you live a short distance from where you work. Then, at least when its nice out, it'll be easy to make your commute more interesting.
Just read the article today, which really had nothing to do with language wars, and everything to do with some really smart kids. I commend all the participants in these contests, and am a bit jealous of their skills.
I also really didn't like Kolstad's comment about "will he die a virgin." It reeked of extremely petty jealousy, and was just crass.
I'm a bit of touch at 41, but are you sure that it isn't already available as an elective for students? Perhaps you meant making it mandatory, which I agree would probably not be very productive.
I took programming in High School, but back then it was all using BASIC. We learned the concepts of variables, memory, loops, and even simple algorithms. And if we finished our homework ahead of the rest of the class, we got to play games. Quite the motivating factor for me at the time.