I finally kicked off my browser based game with the help of codex cli this year. It has been like having a junior developer that takes decent direction. There have been some missteps but "we" have made a lot more progress on it than I had the last three years. And it let's me spend my time optimizing the things I like doing.
I feel like most first intro classes in Computer Science is learn the coding language on your own. At first I was like why? Why don't they hold our hands while we do this. But since I have had some space to look back it really is a pretty good representation of our industry. You are going to need to learn new languages. So getting thrown in the deep end is a pretty good precursor for what work is going to look like.
This isn’t a bad idea, just not for the intro course. When I was an undergrad “programming language” was this course. You were given a brief introduction to brew languages and paradigms then expected to figure it out from there. But at this point you had a foundation of experience to build on.
I don't totally disagree. On the other hand, based on the MOOC I took, had I been going in literally cold (as in college, new experiences, this is my chance to dive into CS and programming), I'd have been completely lost in a way that wouldn't have been the case in other engineering disciplines.
Now, I'm sure some would argue "tough." What are you doing at MIT then? And certainly, there are SO many opportunities these days to get some grounding in a way that may not be as readily possible with chemistry much less nuclear engineering for example. But it is something I think about now and then.
What makes you think this would not have been the case in other engineering disciplines?
I'm also a CS guy so I can't directly challenge this on the whole, but my experiences in some classes outside of this in other domains didn't feel like they were 'comfortably' paced at all. Without extensive out-of-class work I'd have been completely lost in no time. In fact one electrical engineering course I took was ironically considered a weed out course, for computer science, as it was required, and was probably the most brutal (and amazing) class I've ever taken in my life.
I had basically a machine shop course in mechanical engineering in college. OK, it was a bit more than that but I had no "shop" in high school.
Certainly nothing in high school anything that would have really prepared me for a civil engineering or or chemical engineering degree.
I had actually done a little bit of fiddling around with electronics (and maybe should have majored in that). But certainly college would have been a whole different level. (With a whole lot more math which was never my strong suit.)
So, yeah, these days I think there's a different baseline assumption for CS/programming than many other majors.
Is the MOOC the same as the actual MIT course though? I went through one of the old Grimson Guttag Intro to CS courses on MIT OCW years ago, with zero programming background I found it a very gentle on-ramp with all the basics explained.
I think it was this one, unfortunately archived now. I don't know the new one
No idea how similar it was to what's taught in the classroom. Of course you have access to TAs and other students IRL. And I have no doubt that assumptions about prior exposure and skills have changed over time.
I can only report that, had you dumped me into that content with those assignments, with no prior background I'd probably have been dropping that class.
The online version was more Grimson on the algorithms and Guttag (who wrote the Python book) on a bit of the programming. But the emphasis was more on the algorithms.
I find that for most seniors, you should follow the documentation with check ins from current employees. If the documentation is obtuse then have the new hire correct it so that the next new hire having the same information at that point will understand what to do better.
Yes, but double check their work. If they’ve made a mistake that is visible in the documentation, you can fix it now and also have a teachable moment. But as I said above: resist the urge to rephrase what they’ve said unless it’s factually wrong.
When I’m onboarding people, fixing bugs in the docs is the first task they complete. It helps everybody, and it keeps them from having to jump into fixing bugs in code they don’t understand at all yet for just a little while longer, while they build their 10,000 foot view.
Don't buy anything that isn't Zigbee (or, I guess, Z-wave). Wi-Fi is much too heavy and insecure for smart home stuff, Zigbee has a ton of features you'll want (much simpler protocol, automatic repeaters, etc etc).
All of my smart switches are Jasco (aka GE) Z-wave switches.
As I buy other HA toys, I've been getting Zigbee when I can. It has been less hassle to do the device adoption process and the USB dongle I use for Home Assistant supports both Z-Wave and Zigbee simultaneously.
This has only recently been a problem for me. There is a nice gentleman with my same name who picked up the gmail address without the dot. He lives in Arizona. Has a library membership. Plays in a softball league. I am not sure how much of my email he gets. I haven't set up a filter yet but I will eventually. I like seeing what my doppelganger is up to some times.
No, he did not "pick up" that address. Google won't issue a second address that matches the concatenation of the characters without dots. So, if I have john.smith@gmail.com, Google will not issue anyone else johnsmith@, j.ohnsmith@, joh.nsmith@gmail.com or any other combination to another user.
What does often happen is that people FORGET what their actual email address is when they hand it out to other people or write it down on forms. Or their friends or family mis-remember it. Your doppleganger may have actually been issued the address johnny.smith, or smith.johnny, but just forgets.
I have found it helps if I put an entry into hosts file for 127.0.0.1 for all the sites that I waste time on.
Eventually I will go back in and update it when I feel I have caught up but it gives me a reminder when I can't go to the sites at all.
I think a real time ranking system for students at a university that is visible by all is just going to be targeted for greedy or ambitious people looking to convert it into jobs or money.
If I am in the top 10 percent of the rankings in Rocket League sure I can make a few grand streaming, but if I am in the top 10 percent of rankings at a school I can get a better job than the rest. What are the bottom 90 percent's motivation for helping people improve at that point?
With very few exceptions, everyone who plays Rocket League is playing it because they find it intrinsically rewarding. When I taught intro stats I'd guess less than 2% of my students were studying stats because they found it intrinsically rewarding. Even when you get into upper level classes, even among graduate students, the percentage who are taking a class for the intrinsic reward rarely approaches 100%.
Trying to make education more like Rocket League, ignoring the wildly divergent motivations of the people involved, is a fool's errand.
The Grand Caravan interior was from 2005. It was showing its age. Also why make a minivan that sells around 30k when you can make an SUV that sells for 50k. It makes me sad but that is capitalism for ya.
