You could take that one step further. CS has, in it's modern incarnation, only been around for ~90 years. CS, as it is taught at the undergraduate level, has changed dramatically in recent years, and will continue into the future.
Math, on the other hand, has been around for thousands of years, is relatively stable, and unlikely to become obsolete in the way a scrum certification, or even a machine learning algorithm, will.
Of course, 'CS fundamentals' usually end up at a very close intersection with math. I'm just suggesting that mathematics has an even deeper level of the 'stability' you referenced.
>Of course, 'CS fundamentals' usually end up at a very close intersection with math. I'm just suggesting that mathematics has an even deeper level of the 'stability' you referenced.
I agree with you completely. The parts of CS that are stable are the parts that are based on rigorous mathematical foundations. I think that teaching things like Object Oriented Programming strays too far from a rigorous foundation--away from math and even engineering into craft (which belongs in vocational training).
When I look back, the classes that I learned the most from were, Discrete Math, Automata, Design and Analysis of Algorithms, and Programming Language Concepts (which went into the academic side of programming language research more than what was currently in use in industry).
I mostly agree, but for me, the line gets blurry around the applied areas that have a lot of depth: computer architecture, operating systems, networking protocols, compilers, and databases. In all of those, I learned a lot about theory, practice, and engineering trade-offs, all of which was worthwhile. I didn't study it myself, but I would imagine distributed systems is (or should be) a similarly rich subject. I also learned a ton from studying the history of computing, which I wish would be more of a focus for those entering the industry.
Good point. Many of the area's you mentioned do have a lot of formal underpinnings, and there are large bodies of research to look to for guidance.
Computer architecture is big E Engineering, done by Computer Engineers for example. The networks class I took was also one of the most math heavy, and most of the book was supported by proofs. In addition, we spent the first half of databases working with only relational algebra.
If you look through a textbook on any of the subjects you mentioned, and compare it to say a book on design patterns, the distinction between math/engineering and craft is pretty clear.
>I also learned a ton from studying the history of computing, which I wish would be more of a focus for those entering the industry.
We went over the history in depth in my program--from Turing to Konrad Zuse to Backus. I also found it immensely useful.
I thought of this problem from a different perspective. A lot of disadvantaged people, and middle class people in developing nations, already have 'dumbphones'. How could we allow people to do more with basic phones?
I built a little service that does translation over text. If you text "<language> <text to translate>" to (917) 832-1965 it'll reply with the text in the language you requested. You can read more about it here:
According to the WHO, malaria kills almost 500,000 children under 5 each year globally, though the vast majority (~90%) of these deaths are in Africa. [1]
In the US, 3,000-49,000 people die each year from the flu.[2]
"Influenza occurs globally with an annual attack rate estimated at 5%–10% in adults and 20%–30% in children. Illnesses can result in hospitalization and death mainly among high-risk groups (the very young, elderly or chronically ill). Worldwide, these annual epidemics are estimated to result in about 3 to 5 million cases of severe illness, and about 250 000 to 500 000 deaths."
Not to mention, we can eliminate an extreme majority of malaria deaths, and we can do so at a relatively low cost per person. Something the parent is ignoring entirely.
This seems like a wonderful language for game development. I wonder if there will be some kind of graphics support, or if I can use the C API (when it is finished).
The intent is that you'd use the C API. Or, with luck, someone will make a little game engine similar to Löve2d that bundles Wren along with a renderer for you.
Login to https://www.icloud.com/ and use "Find My iPhone" to track your MacBook and iPad. If the thieves are stupid enough, they'll turn the devices on at some point, giving you a good idea of where they are.
Do this as soon as possible, and check back constantly. Good luck!
As much as I like Fred Wilson, he occasionally does these native ad blog posts about companies in USV's portfolio and I have to admit it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't doubt his sincerity; when it comes down to it, I think he's trying to help startups and entrepreneurs, and the best way he can do that is reference his portfolio companies...but ultimately "an experience that a company I'm intimately familiar with" winds up feeling like "I have a large audience of highly networked people reading my blog and I should leverage this to promote my investments."
I think you're confusing a venture capitalist with a journalist.
Venture capitalists are in the business of growing the value of their companies.
In this case, Fred did a great job of re-introducing me to one of his companies. I didn't understand why Brewster was important, but via his thoughtful post in which he shares personal experience, he's highlighted a pain point that I also share. I'll probably try the service now, and it may even make my life easier.
Most importantly, if Fred Wilson (or Mark Suster, or any other VC) only blogged about how great his companies are, nobody would read his blog. Instead, he built a loyal readership by writing on provocative topics, having an opinion, and starting conversations. His writing-to-promotion ratio is skewed very heavily in favor of writing.
Agreed. If you keep writing posts like this, as a VC, you risk losing one of the most important differentiating points you have - your credibility and trust. People need to respect you as a thought leader, and not worry about reading blog posts with a "remove bias / advertising" filter in their heads.
"We also think these breakouts aren’t necessarily a good way to judge accelerators."
Is Y Combinator a bit arrogant to say that the success of its startups is a bad a metric for evaluating their success? If it is a bad metric, what's a good metric?
The first words of the EFF article are "The New York Times". This article, as the title suggests, goes more into the "dangers of unchecked surveillance" in a digital age.
If you read that document carefully, you can see that the EFF edited one of passages that they quoted and did not mention their edit, which is a big no-no. The original letter says:
(this exact number has been selected for a specific reason,
it has definite practical significant.
which the EFF quoted as
(this exact number has been selected for a specific reason,
it has definite practical significance).
Yes, it's not always the case that a single URL is better in every respect. We're working on a design for associating multiple URLs with a story. Even with that, though, there still needs to be a primary URL, because the title on the front page has to link somewhere.
One thing we were stuck on for a while is how to let users vote on what the primary URL should be, but (fingers crossed) I now think we may have hit on a way to do it.
Glad to hear about these improvements in development!
The original article was submitted yesterday but got almost no traction, and the inertia of this post seemed to die off around the time it was switched to the NY Times link. Seems like the EFF one really is a better discussion piece. Would you consider changing the URL back so that the majority of the discussion reflects the original source that sparked it in posterity?
The article never actually specifies whether the "mostly black and Latino" women who digitize the books are treated as independent contractors. It implies it, by launching into a section on Mechanical Turk, Uber, TaskRabbit, etc, but never actually discusses the book digitizers.
They are contractors, but are they independent contractors? I think it's more likely that they are employees of a staffing firm that Google contracts out to for workers rather than independent contractors that Google contracts directly.
Because of the "permatemps" lawsuit against Microsoft back in the day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permatemp), tech companies almost always hire contractors via staffing firms. I'm sure Google is no exception.
I also don't think it's particularly important to this story, but ymmv.
Math, on the other hand, has been around for thousands of years, is relatively stable, and unlikely to become obsolete in the way a scrum certification, or even a machine learning algorithm, will.
Of course, 'CS fundamentals' usually end up at a very close intersection with math. I'm just suggesting that mathematics has an even deeper level of the 'stability' you referenced.