

Hacking Education - messel
http://www.unionsquareventures.com/2009/05/hacking_education.html

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glen
Here's a question for you guys: If there was an easy platform to teach others,
do you think there would be enough collective interest in putting together
lessons/courses on programming?

We at www.nixty.com are building out this platform and there are obvious areas
where there will be pick up (homeschooling, skill development [ie., photoshop]
etc.), but for a while now I've been wondering if hackers would actually
collaborate and create a sort of Hackers U.

There is a guy who frequently posts/links on HN to different lessons on
learning python and other languages. I think that is great, so it is nice to
see some initial movement in this area.

~~~
Chocobean
I think that's the idea behind answers.com ask.com and instructables.com and
wikipedia. People have a lot of free time, hackers included. I think a central
hub where senior hackers can teach younger hackers is a noble and profitable
idea.

So receiving content for free will be the easy part.

The hard part will be sorting through the 50 entries for how to start
programming in Python and the 5000 entries for best text editors to use.

~~~
glen
Yes, there definitely has to be an integral community moderated system, so
that the best content rises.

~~~
Chocobean
incidentally, isn't that Joel Spolsky's Stack Overflow?? Although the emphasis
on SO is answering questions, as opposed to instruction material on how to
learn a certain technology.

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Alex3917
For what it's worth, Squidoo is about to release a feature which makes it very
easy to create the kind of lens that Brad links to at the top of the post. So
far I've made lenses like this on three conferences by hand:

<http://www.squidoo.com/hacking_education>

<http://www.squidoo.com/the99percent>

<http://www.squidoo.com/blogwell-ny-2009>

They each took 3+ hours, but with the new module it should be quick and easy.
The conference organizers love these things, so once the new module launches
if there are any conferences you want to go to then let me know and I'll try
to get you in for free if you agree to make one for them. I think we'll run it
like wikinews where you have to make one or two good quality ones and then
we'll give you a press pass. (I still need to run this by the Squidoo staff
again, so no promises, but I'll try.)

Of course you won't be able to submit them to the HN queue because Squidoo
lenses are still banned, but such is life.

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stcredzero
A real education involves playful tinkering. The example of the AMV creator
brings this to like. Also, I really only grokked Assembly Language after I
discovered Core Wars.

~~~
Chocobean
Thanks for introducing me to Core Wars! Always wanted to learn assembly, so an
abstracted version in a game format is exactly what I need to get started!

Any such initiatives for Lisp.....?

~~~
stcredzero
Look up Koza's work with Genetic Algorithms. There are lots of little "game
worlds" about the same complexity as Core Wars.

------
johnnybgoode
Here is the related post from yesterday:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=607234>

