

At Odds: Hackers at Harvard - evangastman
http://evangastman.tumblr.com/

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hmpc
>I don’t buy that as an excuse for why there aren’t any intensive courses on
Ruby on Rails, Node.js, Objective-C, HTML/CSS and JavaScript.

For the same reason why there aren't any intensive courses on Windows, ASP, or
GNOME. Because technologies come and go --- nowhere more so than in software
--- and those left standing are the ones who grasped the fundamentals of their
field, not the ones who blitzed their way through a Node.js hackathon. The
former are the innovators, the latter are the guns for hire.

All the things you mention can be hacked in under a week by a motivated
student. If your objective is to hack (and that is entirely fine for many
purposes), you don't need a traditional college course to do so. In fact, I
would argue that is entirely antithetical to the essence of hacking!

If you're a Harvard student, you have an amazing opportunity to learn the
truly difficult subjects with some of the best people in the world, the kind
of stuff you won't learn in two hours in an online tutorial. Take advantage of
that; for everything else there's the internet.

~~~
evangastman
I appreciate this response a lot, especially the last sentence. My takeaway
from it: Search out those things that you can't find on the Internet. Believe
it or not, that sentiment really does offer a new way of thinking about
things.

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joelgrus
Expecting Harvard to teach you how to be a hacker is about as far from the
hacker mindset as you can get.

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evangastman
Clarify, please?

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joelgrus
In my mind the "hacker mindset" is something along the lines of

"I want to do X, so I'm going to go off and do whatever it takes to figure out
how to do X".

Not

"I'm going to complain that no one is teaching me how to do X".

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sayangel
As an undergrad I found myself thinking similarly. Looking back, I definitely
think I rushed some things and agree with most people in this thread. The
stuff you described won't and shouldn't be taught in schools. You're there to
engage in thoughtful discourse that will help you come up with better
solutions to the worlds problems. Node, RoR, etc. are just tools to make those
ideas come to life. You can be a code monkey, but that doesn't make you a good
software engineer. Find the right balance and I think you'll find the quality
of your hacks will improve as well.

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egl2000
If what you want is "intensive courses on Ruby on Rails, Node.js, Objective-C,
HTML/CSS and JavaScript", save yourself four years and save your folks $200K.
Drop out and get a public library card.

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ajaymehta
Schools like Harvard should have a major (or at least a concentration) in Web
Development. Without that, they're missing out on setting up thousands of
students for success.

~~~
asolove
"Setting up thousands of students for success" is not the goal of a
university. If it were, they should also offer majors in underwater welding,
computer-aided machining, and other currently-understaffed specialist roles
where a person with only one or two years' experience can earn good money.

It's worth remembering that "web startup engineer" is to Computer Science what
those vocations are to Physics. It is a craft, not a discipline and best
learned through experience rather than theory.

~~~
deskglass
I think they were being sarcastic.

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lquist
"there seems to be some sort of disdain for the inelegant style of cut and
paste hacker programming ingrained in the startup community"

Wait, what?

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MAGZine
I think that the author means is that Harvard places a high value on "perfect
code," when "just ship it," is closer to the mantra of the startup community.
Goes hand-in-hand with "do things that don't scale," which is another bit that
follows the same ideal of "get it out the door."

I don't think that there is any reason to rush in University though. Take
time, learn the fundamentals. There is plenty of time to corner cut later.

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billyjobob
_I have delved into the theoretical side of computer science, learning about
lower-level languages such as C, experiencing faint tastes of web programming,
and more recently, an introduction to the beauty of recursion in functional
programming languages like OCaml... but I know I haven’t experienced that
“hacker” oriented style of programming that I was hoping for through Harvard._

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

~~~
evangastman
I'd like to clarify some things that are not clear in the post. I am finding a
lot of value in the CS courses I am taking in their rigor and the way they are
changing how I think about problems. I also feel like I am in the company of
some incredibly smart, talented, and driven people. I feel awfully fortunate
to be in the position I am in. This all said, I also think that being able to
build hackable and scalable projects is really powerful, and that the
education I want meshes these areas together- instruction directed towards the
theory as well as with the projects.

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supersystem
Please upvote when you comment if you find the post interesting, otherwise it
will get "controversy banned".

