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Nand2Tetris was my favorite. I can't say the information (particularly the first half) has much practical application for me, but it was a lot of fun and deepe

Nand2Tetris was my favorite. I can't say the information (particularly the first half) has much practical application for me, but it was a lot of fun and deepened my understanding of what's going on at a low level. Homework is very well designed with a simulator you download to test your work on, then submit for automatic grading. Udacity's Differential Equations course was pretty awesome too. I had taken Calculus previously, but I believe it's pretty approachable even if you haven't. The homework was very well designed, and involved fun problems like computing gravitational slingshots and curing diseases. Coursera's "The Unwritten Constitution", also has a similar "The Written Constitution". Both are pretty awesome and really gives an in depth view of what the constitution is about (spoiler alert: it's about slavery), and even points out holes that haven't been challenged yet. Homework was writing essays and grading other people's, so not that well designed in that respect. Coursera's "Coding the Matrix" is a Linear Algebra course. I took it the first time it was offered, and you pretty much had to buy the accompanying book to follow along. And the book unfortunately had a lot of "first version" issues. A lot of the homework wasn't explained very well, but it was all auto graded code. I think the issues with the book have been addressed with the second edition, not sure about the homework. I had already taken linear algebra before, so this was mostly a refresher, but even I found it hard to follow along in the last part, and never completed the last homework assignment. On Youtube you can find "Fundamentals of Small Arms Weapons" from 1945. It shows how the action of a small arms rifle works. It starts as just a tube with a bullet, and works up to several different types of fully automatic actions. It's just a couple hours long.

iooi 9y ago
> Nand2Tetris was my favorite. Yes! Nand2Tetris came about before "MOOC" was even coined. It's a great course where you start building simple circuits in a hardware simulator, and eventually build a working Tetris game -- on hardware you built (running in a simulator), in an OS you wrote. Highly, highly recommend it.
zweedeend 9y ago
Yes, Nand2Tetris was great! I learned so much and it was challenging and fun.
rectang 9y ago
Coding The Matrix had a great concept. The learn-math-by-coding approach allows the student to see applications of the material from early on. The treatment of complex numbers was especially strong. The tradeoff is that the student must debug during the exercises (an activity which is unrelated to the material), but it's worth it. Regrettably, Coding the Matrix was taken down down along with a lot of first-generation Coursera courses. However, there's still the book, the website at http://codingthematrix.com http://codingthematrix.com and the the lectures from the Brown University version of the course: https://cs.brown.edu/video/channels/coding-matrix-fall-2014 https://cs.brown.edu/video/channels/coding-matrix-fall-2014
Patrick_Devine 9y ago
I loved both Nand2Tetris and Coding the Matrix, although I had different experiences with them. For Coding the Matrix, I didn't buy the book, but just watched the videos and worked through the course work. This was super fun, but I could see someone who was not proficient in python getting really frustrated. I took it the first time it was run as well, and there were a couple of rough areas, but overall it was really enjoyable. With Nand2Tetris, I just bought the book and worked through it without taking a class. I'd sketch out the hardware literally on the back of napkins and then try it in the simulator when I got home. It was incredibly fun, and I loved how it took everything down to first principles.

iooi 9y ago

> Nand2Tetris was my favorite. Yes! Nand2Tetris came about before "MOOC" was even coined. It's a great course where you start building simple circuits in a hardware simulator, and eventually build a working Tetris game -- on hardware you built (running in a simulator), in an OS you wrote. Highly, highly recommend it.

zweedeend 9y ago

Yes, Nand2Tetris was great! I learned so much and it was challenging and fun.

rectang 9y ago

Coding The Matrix had a great concept. The learn-math-by-coding approach allows the student to see applications of the material from early on. The treatment of complex numbers was especially strong. The tradeoff is that the student must debug during the exercises (an activity which is unrelated to the material), but it's worth it. Regrettably, Coding the Matrix was taken down down along with a lot of first-generation Coursera courses. However, there's still the book, the website at http://codingthematrix.com http://codingthematrix.com and the the lectures from the Brown University version of the course: https://cs.brown.edu/video/channels/coding-matrix-fall-2014 https://cs.brown.edu/video/channels/coding-matrix-fall-2014

Patrick_Devine 9y ago

I loved both Nand2Tetris and Coding the Matrix, although I had different experiences with them. For Coding the Matrix, I didn't buy the book, but just watched the videos and worked through the course work. This was super fun, but I could see someone who was not proficient in python getting really frustrated. I took it the first time it was run as well, and there were a couple of rough areas, but overall it was really enjoyable. With Nand2Tetris, I just bought the book and worked through it without taking a class. I'd sketch out the hardware literally on the back of napkins and then try it in the simulator when I got home. It was incredibly fun, and I loved how it took everything down to first principles.