

The Future of Computer Science And Why Every Other Major Sucks - NEPatriot
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/6154-savetfp-cpw-professor-talent-show-2010-22

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mkramlich
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.

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presidentender
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.

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jorgeortiz85
Here are the slides (the speakers notes have some of the text of the talk):
<http://www.scottaaronson.com/talks/futurecs.ppt>

And the blog post (no transcript): <http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=442>

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pasbesoin
There are 13 slides with not a lot of information content, but bulky due to
graphics (~ 7 MB).

One can avoid running PowerPoint by viewing them through the Google Docs
Viewer:

[https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scottaaro...](https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scottaaronson.com%2Ftalks%2Ffuturecs.ppt)

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jorgeortiz85
The "Speakers Notes" have the bulk of the information content, but AFAICT
don't show up in that Google Docs rendition.

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pasbesoin
Oh, my bad. Thanks for the clarification.

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kylecordes
It was very nice of them to put this online.

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).

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trm
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.

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corruption
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.

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arethuza
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.

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corruption
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)

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arethuza
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.

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ElliotH
Great to hear some positive stuff on CompSci.

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!

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stcredzero
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.)

Domain knowledge! Get some!

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nightski
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!

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tewks
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.

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moultano
>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/>

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tewks
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.

~~~
moultano
>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.

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stcredzero
Here's a Slideshare, for those who don't want to download the Powerpoint

[http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/llimllib/the-future-of-
comp...](http://www.slideshare.net/mobile/llimllib/the-future-of-computer-
science-and-why-every-other-major-sucks-by-comparison-3705322)

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POWERDOG
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.

