Does anyone have a transcript? It's a compelling title, but I'd rather not wait for the man in the jester hat to finish speaking before I get access to his point.
But the audio quality is poor. It seems like when someone high profile (like MIT TechTV) goes to the effort of recording and posting video, they could spend a few more bucks and put a microphone on the speaker (or hook in to whatever audio system that handheld mic was hooked up to).
As a general rule, using the build in mic of a video camera at the back of a room will yield tolerable audio only in very rare conditions (a room that's "dead" acoustically, and a very quiet or nonexistent audience).
As someone who was in this audience two months ago, I am incredibly excited to be starting school at MIT this September and studying computer science. Formal study of CS gets a lot of heat around these parts, but I do think it's one of the best subjects to study for the reasons discussed in the video. Computers are the fastest-changing technology that people have ever witnessed, and there's vast potential for the future of computers and their impact on society.
Honestly, I'm in two minds about it. If I didn't have the domain knowledge I do (I did a masters in another field before starting cs, and since have performed research in many varied fields of interest) I wouldn't be half as successful or have anywhere near the range of experiences to draw on.
Of the ~50 or so coders I've hired over the years for my co, the best were always ones with domain knowledge from another field. They weren't the best coders from a technical point of view, but were the best at being able to deliver working software to clients faster. More often than not the ones without extra knowledge were unable to grasp the domain problems, and their solutions always needed rejigging.
Edit: By being unable to grasp, I mean that the distance from their solution to the optimal solution was always quite large. More often than not their design, while designed for extensibility was flexible in a dimension that didn't move towards the optimal solution. So the extra engineering time was wasted.
I don't know that I would hire a pure CS grad again, and all the interns I have now I strongly recommend they concurrently study other fields. Computers are a means to an end. I suggest studying both the means and the end.
I've probably hired about the same number - the guys who were the absolute best were from CS backgrounds. Probably depends on the kind of systems you are building.
I wasn't meaning that they had no CS backgrounds, but had a cross-discipline background. I've never hired someone without a degree in computer science, but the best had a multidisciplinary background (e.g. cs + english, cs + a biological science, cs + psychology etc)
The guys (yes, they were all guys) I meant all had pure CS backgrounds. Either 4 year BSc degrees, some with PhDs on top of that (I'm in the UK so PhD is typically research only).
Of course, YMMV. These were core product developers - the folks who did well in customer facing roles did have more varied backgrounds.
Seems like recently theres been a lot of news on why its not relevant or unnecessary - which isn't optimistic news for me since thats what I'm going to be studying at University later this year!
Just remember that CS is a means, not an end! (Imagine an ancient Mesopotamian scribe telling you writing is the ultimate and all else is subordinate.)
For the typical programmer, maybe. But that is like saying mathematics is a means, not an end. Which is true, but that does not mean there is no value in studying and advancing the field of mathematics!
That's going to be true for any technical discipline. The majority of any engineering or maths curriculum is available on Wikipedia and mathworld in great detail.
Why CS is different is due to less of a need of verification of skill. Many don't mind giving an informally taught programmer a job because his/her work can be verified by reading or executing code. That isn't possible in civil engineering, for example.
>The majority of any engineering or maths curriculum is available on Wikipedia and mathworld in great detail.
I'd love to believe that someone could do this, but I haven't seen it happen. Most of the course-like learning I've been able to do "online" has been because some professor was nice enough to put a pdf of their textbook on their university page.
That said, I've created a subreddit specifically for people who want to read long articles that teach them something important. http://www.reddit.com/r/learnit/
Sorry, but which topics in particular do you find lacking on Wikipedia or mathworld, for example?
The math and physics articles are generally pretty good, include derivations, background on the subject, and you can then click to learn about the personalities who discovered the idea. There are no problem sets, however.
This is one problem, the other problem is that there isn't a good way to sort the articles by prerequisites. There's also no easy way find out what you don't know you don't know about a subject.
There's is a distinction between a professional skill like programming and an artistic skill like painting, which could perhaps be expressed through demand levels and commoditization.
Programming is easier to commoditize than painting. Painting ceased being a professional skill in relatively high demand upon the advent of the camera. The individuality of the painter became even more important during impressionism.
I would say that in creating something one's skills are almost irrelevant. Does it matter the skill of the creator if the art is beautiful or the application just works?
I think a lot of things are self-taught by nine-year-olds: the basics of engineering (I know a nine year old who built a potato gun!), sports, arts and crafts, networking, animal care, and these are just the things off the top of my head :)
I think CS and robotics will become in greater demand in the future but I think the demand for traditional university CS education will decrease. It is still mostly a "results-only" field, and the Internet has made it even easier to self-educate, quickly and cheaply.
Finally some good stuff about CS, that also from a highly respected person. Much better than some fizzbuzz programmer thinking how CS and Masters degree suck.
