
Hacker CS: The Khan Academy of Computer Science. - agilo
http://hackercs.com/
======
schiptsov
What is remarkable about Khan Academy is that it was done. It was a huge
effort. And it was done from scratch, out of nothing. Not in order to promote
some crapware like Silverlight or Flash, but with commitment to teach poor
people.

Collecting videos around the net and put it in one page is useless idea. There
are plenty of really great courses from MIT, Yale, Berkeley and they were
already aggregated on sites like academicearch.

And of course, no one could ever beat 6.001 from MIT ^_^ It is art. Btw, if
you like to improve your education in CS courses from MIT are enough. For
general education visit Yale. For everything else there is Berkeley. CS69A is
a masterpiece.

~~~
jhchen
Don't forget Stanford: <http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx>. Their intro
to programming courses are some of the best.

~~~
jackowayed
I wish they had the new 107 on there. It's a very different course now (all C
and assembly). Unfortunately the Stanford Center for Professional Development
does most of the video taping now and is very resistive to putting videos
online because they make something like $1k from people who pay just to watch
the videos and $5k from people who are officially enrolled and get exams and
assignments and such.

Luckily, there are some newer recordings at
<http://openclassroom.stanford.edu/MainFolder/HomePage.php>

I hear 161 (Algorithms) is a great class. 229 (Machine Learning) is supposed
to be pretty good too.

~~~
JacobIrwin
I started with MIT's [Open Courseware] Intro to Programming... got me very
interested in learning more about CS.

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ISeemToBeAVerb
As one commenter brought up, I think you need to keep in mind who you are
targeting. The real brilliance about Khan Academy, in my mind, is that they
aren't just another video tutorial repository. They have a sophisticated back-
end tracking system that allows teachers and parents to gauge the level of
comprehension the students are working at.

The other thing to note about Khan, is that the site is precisely intended for
younger students in an effort to give them a solid foundational backing for
further study.

Personally, I don't think we need another resource for experienced developers.
Experienced developers have a level of understanding that already allows them
to be more critical of the tools and resources they choose. If you're truly
interested in following the Khan model, you should be focusing on the core
fundamentals that are often taken for granted in many of the other resources.
That's not to say that you couldn't expand to more advanced topics, but
starting at the lowest level and working up would be more beneficial in my
eyes.

Anyhow, interested to see what you get up there. Cheers!

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Killah911
Come on, you guys could've at least not done the robot voices on the intro
video. A blackboard with some emotinoal statments regarding pointers or even a
"reflection" joke would've been more like it. It'd be a neat idea and I'd
follow up only if you promise that robotic kittens will not be involved in any
of the lectures :-P

~~~
agilo
Rest assured that no "robotic kittens" are involved in the production of the
tutorials. That promo video was my form of working on a limited monetary,
manpower and time budget. When you're still a student and the only one working
on a project (and more interested in creating the videos than promoting them),
you get something of this kind.

That said, the interface and video seem to have been appealing enough for
people to sign up en-mass (and for you to call us "you guyS" where in reality
it should have been merely "you" ;) )

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paufernandez
Now I feel I have to say it: I've started a YouTube Channel inspired by the
Khan Academy (in spanish). It's not like Hacker CS, though. I'm targetting
only guys who want to program and don't know how to start, not future CS
students. In my opinion, that is closer in spirit to the Khan Academy.

I have only C++ right now but there are already 136 videos (and 227
subscribers). And I've gotten some very nice comments, and that makes me very
happy.

Here it is: <http://www.youtube.com/user/paueky>

There is a companion site, which shows the dependency graph between videos:
<http://minidosis.org/C++>

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JacobIrwin
Looking forward to seeing this tool launch!

May take a bit before it has all the resources that can currently be found in
the YouTube tutorials, but I can see it getting there in a short time...

This guy has a full range (and a good rep) of CS tutorials:
<http://www.thenewboston.com/>. Maybe you could contact him and collab.

Keep us posted :-)

~~~
agilo
Thanks! Will do. His focus seems more on practical matters (software
development) than theoretical aspects, but I sure have a lot to learn from
him.

~~~
todayiamme
Okay, dumb question, which languages will you teach the concepts through? Does
the list by any chance include a lisp dialect?

~~~
JacobIrwin
If the app is going to built similar to Khan, my guess is there will be videos
(with progressions) for several languages and dialects. I have no inside info
- and stand to be corrected - but Khan offers a wide web (not as in interwebs)
of sub-categories that branch out to a sizable spectrum, so I am guessing
hackercs.com will too (within the field of 'CS').

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patrickaljord
Will it be under a Creative Commons license like the Khan Academy? That would
make a lot more people want to contribute.

~~~
agilo
Making those videos is just a passion I have. Not particularly looking to make
money out of it, so I'm definitely going to explore that option.

~~~
patrickaljord
Great, youtube has an option for licensing videos with CC now.

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scottjad
already done. <http://codeschool.org/core-units/> or
<http://www.youtube.com/user/briantwill>

~~~
covercash
Another good resource:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/carlhprogramming/comments/9nz5s/welc...](http://www.reddit.com/r/carlhprogramming/comments/9nz5s/welcome_everyone_some_details/)

~~~
jimbokun
I never realized before how well a Reddit style conversation could work as a
lecture format. Very short "lecture" part, then lots of comments with people
trying different things, asking questions, and getting answers both from their
peers and the "lecturer". Very simple, but very effective.

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Thoreandan
Unfortunately the signup logic considers a "+" in an email address field to be
an invalid email address.

~~~
agilo
That's embarrassing :$ I guess that's what happens when you take ready-made
templates from themeforest ;) I'll see if I can fix that... Thanks for
pointing it out though.

~~~
audioHack
I encountered that problem too, came all the way here, signed in, and look
somebody beat me to the punch :-)

We've all been there. +1 for ThemeForest. Non-design oriented programmer's
best friend :D

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makthrow
I'm sorry but you are not the "Khan Academy of CS" until you actually have a
product. There is nothing on the site yet. It's an idea, a concept, a theory.
I don't like this trend of launching while you haven't developed anything.

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Locke1689
What's the targeted difficulty level here? My experience with other Khan
Academy videos is that they may be fine for a sophomore or junior year high
schooler but their advanced topics are very lacking or generalized. How much
CS will actually be taught here? How will it compete with things like Google
Code University? <http://code.google.com/edu/algorithms/index.html>

~~~
agilo
I'd say undergraduate university education in CS. Most students in fact are
only exposed to CS in college, so it'd be the basics they get there. A good
review for seniors, an excellent introduction for students from high school,
and a quick refresher for programming interviewee candidates.

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agilo
That's a sample of the videos: <http://www.youtube.com/Agilowen>

~~~
patrickaljord
Please license them as CC SA or similar.

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Brewer
I'm a huge fan of Khan Academy, so I hope that your site will do the name
justice. Now I can't imagine that Khan would have a problem, but you should be
careful when relating your site with others like this. Some people might think
that you're actually aligned with Khan Academy.

~~~
agilo
You are right. I've come to realize that the reason the site has garnered the
attention it has thus far is mainly due to the comparison to Khan Academy.
Otherwise, such services already exist (although one could argue that their
execution leaves something to be desired).

The only reason I used Khan Academy in the slogan was to get the idea closer
to mind (and to do it with as few words as possible). But the effect has been
far more powerful than anticipated.

I'm really wondering now if I should remove any allusion to Khan Academy from
the page. What do you think?

~~~
Brewer
THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE

I would recommend you give Khan a shout (if you can find an email or phone
number for him) and see what he thinks. It's always possible that he might (at
some point, not necessarily now) be interested in adding a CS section to Khan
Academy.

I'll admit that you're right, the reason I click on the link was because of
the comparison to Khan Academy.

~~~
rhizome31
<aol>I second this.</aol> Khan Academy already has sections on finance,
history, etc. why not CS? That way you could stand on the shoulders of the
infrastructure and focus on you content.

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alatkins
The typical "hacker" ethos these days (out with the old, re-invent the wheel,
everything taught in college is a waste of time etc) seems to be almost the
antithesis of classical computer science, so I'm not sure I get the
juxtaposition of the two in the name of the site.

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antihero
[http://files.0xf.nl/images/Screenshot-
Hacker%20CS%20is%20the...](http://files.0xf.nl/images/Screenshot-
Hacker%20CS%20is%20the%20Khan%20Academy%20of%20computer%20science.%20-%20Google%20Chrome.png)
I'd sort that font out. But wicked idea :)

~~~
fredoliveira
Oh, font aliasing in chrome Linux. So much could/should be said.

~~~
antihero
For most things it's pretty damn nice.

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jules
I sure hope that the videos are not based on the same computer generated
speech.

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hng
You can find some good lectures on the ArsDigital University Archive
<http://www.aduni.org/courses/> I liked the Theory of Computation lecture.

~~~
jc-denton
Same here, used that lecture when my prof failed to explain the pumping lemma
properly.

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lhnz
I've put my email down.

Hopefully this is more about the fundamentals and theory of Computer Science,
since there is a lot elsewhere online if you want to learn how to program.

Somebody else mentioned the format, and I would request that the videos are
short and concise. It would also be nice if there were audiobook versions
since I could listen to this on the way to and from work, although then you
would have to make sure the visual part does not contain information that's
not audible.

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nwhitehead
Sounds cool! I'm excited to see how it works out.

Some notes from the video I saw on YouTube. Needs better audio quality. Bigger
fonts for the computer typing would be nicer, the existing size was just
legible. It would be nice to see the diagram and code on screen at the same
time rather than switching back and forth. I liked the 5 minute length, that
is just long enough.

~~~
agilo
Poor audio quality noted. I'll be getting myself a better microphone. That
particular video (with the computer typing) is in HD and can go up to 720p.
But it's very easy to increase the font in notepad++, and I'll be doing that.
As to switching back and forth, the diagrams, notes and code will be available
for download and so users will be able to follow along on their computers (and
maybe even directly from the web app). Thanks for the feedback!

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duncanj
Starting with a quick discussion of NIH syndrome.

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pbreit
Hopefully this will answer my Quora question: [http://www.quora.com/Is-there-
anything-like-Khan-Academy-but...](http://www.quora.com/Is-there-anything-
like-Khan-Academy-but-for-programming)

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blendergasket
This is extremely exciting to me! I've worked in a couple programming classes
but am mainly self taught (and no where near as good as I want to be) so I'm
really excited to go through these! Thank you!

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newcomment
Anybody else find the video creepy? Watching this seems reassuring that the
uncanny valley is very very very far away. :)

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tanay46
A great idea. Will you be making your own lectures or linking to the lectures
from MIT OCW, Stanford etc.

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jvandenbroeck
I quickly skipped through the video & it looks nice:) although I don't like
the sound of the voice

~~~
kmfrk
The voice seems fine, but the audio is awful. I am slightly hard of hearing,
and trying to listen to what is actually being said would take away from the
point of the lectures.

Maybe they can be salvaged with some post-processing where the voice is bumped
up.

~~~
agilo
I'll keep that in mind. Given the interest, I'll make sure to get myself a
professional grade microphone for future videos :)

~~~
kmfrk
Are you using a regular microphone? I would imagine that a decent one would do
the job, but your current one makes it sound that you are shouting from the
bathroom or something. :)

I think a cheap headset would do just fine. Sal Khan doesn't use anything
expensive.

~~~
agilo
I don't hold the microphone to my mouth, but simply put it on my desk. That's
to prevent it from picking up my "pops". I need to start using a pop filter.

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krashidov
I'm in school for CS right now, so I'll be sure to complement with these
videos as well.

Thanks!

~~~
agilo
You don't have an email listed on your profile. Please get in touch (or let us
know of your email). Thanks!

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virtica
Its a great idea. Ready for the movement from idea to implementation.

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rreeves
Great idea! I'm looking forward to your launch.

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nrbafna
nit-picky but "sign up to be notified" text, looks like a text-input field.
changing the box-shadow to outside will help.

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buckwild
This sounds awesome. Can't wait.

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tathagatadg
Awesome ... no more school!

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chrisjsmith
_choke_ SICP.

And it works in bright sunlight and doesn't require batteries.

On a more serious note, Khan Academy is great but the format allows too many
distractions. I'd like to see a paper version of it.

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kmfrk
If you log into the main page, you will only get achievement points, if you
keep the lecture tab open. Pretty smart way to amend it with incentives. :)

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Inufu
You get achievement points there now? Crazy world oO

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dolvlo
Xtranormal. Really? Can't take this seriously, I laugh so hard at TTS

