
Hacker News comments are assigned reading for UC Berkeley CS 10 course - zapoist
http://cs10.org/sp18/
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greenyoda
In particular, the syllabus links to this HN discussion:

 _Algorithms Are Great and All, but They Can Also Ruin Lives (wired.com)_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8630311](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8630311)

~~~
lifthrasiir
...that is thankfully three years ago, modest enough (compared to what HN has
become in recent years _sigh_ ) and no longer open for further comments.

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greenpresident
I am thoroughly impressed by the number of people involved in this class. I
teach a class at a large European research university and it is the professor
plus two TAs, nobody else. That is a difference tuition and funding can make.
You get what you pay for.

Edit: forgot to mention that there are 460 students registered for the exam.
They wonder why we don’t have them write papers...

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briandear
What's ironic about your statement is that there are many in the US that
clamor for "free" university education for "everyone" \-- citing how it's done
in Europe. However, like everything, there are tradeoffs and unintended
consequences that go beyond the simplistic thoughts of the politically and
economically naïve. The University of California system, in my amateur opinion
is extremely good. In fact, the state university systems in most US states are
all of pretty good quality. I spent a bit of time living near the University
of Avignon (France) and, compared to a typical American community college, I
was very suprised at how deficient the French university was. In France,
university is "free" but as you said, you get what you pay for. Of course,
there are exceptional European universities and there are terrible American
universities, but overall, American university systems seem to be much better
than the equivalent in "free" university countries.

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wolfgke
> Of course, there are exceptional European universities and there are
> terrible American universities, but overall, American university systems
> seem to be much better than the equivalent in "free" university countries.

I personally think that the typical German university is better than the
typical US one, but it is a very different system: In Germany you are very
much on your own when you are studying. This teaches you a lot about self-
discipline, which employers love. On the other hand, if you are a person who
needs a lot of handholding, German universities are probably not for you. In
my opinion being able to study mostly for free is more than worth the lack of
handholding, but as I said: This system is not for everybody.

~~~
adamnemecek
I agree 100%. The US university system treats the students as kindergarten.

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ericzawo
I always like to joke to people that if they want to learn something, anything
at all, all they have to do is take a free class at YouTube university. I’ll
have to add HN comments to my joke!

(And yes, as a former tech worker with no professional coding experience can
vouch I’ve learned a TON here.)

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oblio
Just make sure you don't mix them up, I don't wish learning from YouTube
comments even on my worst enemies.

~~~
amrrs
That'd have become the latest version Microsoft Tay!

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arthurofbabylon
This getting upvoted and rising toward the top of HN reminds me of Hesse
writing about academic/intellectual elites and winning the Nobel prize for it.
Magister Ludi wasn’t his best novel, but it was the one that felt most self-
gratifying for the voting body.

Humans tend to regard as ‘right’/of-value/impressive that which validates
their own perspective, sometimes shamelessly.

~~~
stanislavb
You are right, yet, I believe there's a lot of wisdom and value in the
comments here. Quite often I tend to read the commends before the
articles/posts themselves.

~~~
w8w00rd
reminds me of this: [http://danluu.com/hn-comments/](http://danluu.com/hn-
comments/)

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tempodox
Making HN comments assigned reading without also adding
[http://n-gate.com](http://n-gate.com) would sound quite irresponsible, if it
were more than the one specific thread the article refers to.

~~~
pknerd
is it me or others also see that CAPTCHA and "loading" thing on main page?

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eesmith
You know there are people who don't like the HN hivemind, yes? "Hacker News is
an echo chamber focusing on computer posturing and self-aggrandizement." and
"Hacker News is the Slashdot for the smug classes".

For the most part I think they are right, though obviously I am still here. I
think that says something about me.

Some of these people do things like do a redirect based on the referer.

Try following one of the links at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jwz.org](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=jwz.org)
. Done because "Hacker News is a steaming cesspool and I don't have time or
desire to deal with their bandwidth demands, so I just block them."

~~~
aalleavitch
It’s weird to call Hacker News a hive mind when all I see is people arguing
with each other.

~~~
eesmith
Have you ever watched US political shows? It seems like the inside-the-Beltway
hivemind loves to argue with each other too.

Never known people who like to argue with each other for the sake of argument?

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PacketPaul
They are using snap! an apparent derivative of Scratch. Seriously?

The course sounds exactly like my six graders middle school course. Well the
six graders did read Hacker News, so I guess that is what makes it a College
Level EE course (eyes roll).

~~~
extra88
Scratch is a good introduction to programming concepts, regardless of age. How
fortunate for your sixth grader; if such courses were common in earlier
grades, a course like this could start with more challenging material.

This is not an EE class, it's an intro CS class, one that's not for those with
prior knowledge who know they'll choose CS as a major. This kind of course can
get new people interested, those who didn't think they'd like or could do CS.
Even if they don't major in it, by taking this one course, they know more
about an important part of what makes our world work.

CS50 at Harvard College [0] is also a very large, popular course that gets
more people interested in CS as a major but is also useful to those who don't
take another class. It also starts with Scratch though it switches to other
languages very quickly and appears more challenging overall than this course.

[0] [https://cs50.harvard.edu](https://cs50.harvard.edu)

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sidcool
This is an added responsibility for us. We will make it worth.

