4 ms·

How many of you don't use Google CS Curriculum search?

117 points by darwinGod 16y ago

I was surprised when I met several CS grads who were not using this, because they hadn't heard about it!

blahedo 16y ago
Well, I didn't. But now that I know about it...
steven_h 16y ago
The stuff on Algorithms is interesting, but not very deep for anyone who knows the basics and is trying to expand their understanding. But I think these are meant to be general lessons rather than specific.
- darwinGod 16y ago
  I'm guessing you saw only the course listed on the left- not the curriculum search itself. If you use the search, and see lecture notes, assignments,ppts on various topics, you might come across things you didnt know before.
bretpiatt 16y ago
Bit of a link-bait title, this along with various other of the labs search projects are interesting but hard to find. I wonder if they build separate data sets for these lab searches or if it is just a special tag that could also be passed to your main Google search box like labfilter:csci or something?
- darwinGod 16y ago
  I agree it does look like link-baiting-after all this is a link to Google's own site. But since there are two places to search- Code, and curriculum,PERHAPS Curriculum search is somewhat overlooked. I didnt know about filter:csci before.. I often dont type in 'filter' in my searches. Also, if this was very widely used, I would have expected to see some mashups,competitors- which I didnt. Anyways, if there is even one CS grad who got to know about CS Curriculum search through this post, I think it will increase my real life karma tremendously :-) :-)
  - kgermino 16y ago
    If you agree that the title is link-baity and it's your title why don't you change it? (Or for that matter why would you submit it with a link-bait title to begin with?) A better title would be something along the lines of Google CS Curriculum Search.
    - darwinGod 16y ago
      What is really interesting is that, Curriculum search is not new- I have been using it for around 2 years. I just happened to discover from course of conversations, with some of my friends, that they haven't heard about google curriculum search - and I was really surprised. It is a great way to look up tutorials, course materials. If you notice the poll results for Curriculum search (cant draw a definitive conculusion from this sample,still), it seems to be terribly skewed towards people who haven't heard at all about Curriculum search- for a CS-centric community like Hacker news, that's very surprising. Another thing to think about is that- proper vertical search for course contents of top universities around the world, would go about a long way in providing quality "self-education" for students all around the world. Look at khanacademy- when one guy making educational videos on algebra and arithmatic,is making such a huge impact - here we have a good search facility of top cs curriculum /course material of the best universities all around the world, lying idle? I dont want to sound patronising- but just think- what an incredible feature is this in the hands a CS curious hacker in Africa, or for that matter any 'third-world place' -all he/she needs is internet connection! That's it! I really feel sad that something which ought to be very,very popular, probably is gathering dust at Google.
      - kgermino 16y ago
        I completely agree with you that Curriculum is an interesting, useful, and underutilized feature. However that is completely unrelated to what I said. Again, why do you make a submission with a title that you openly admit is link-baity, unless you are trying to artificially increase your karma? I don't know how long you have read HN but your account is less than a month old and intentionally submitting link-bait (especially by a relativity new user) reeks of karma whoring and really pisses me (and I assume/hope a number of other users) off.
xtho 16y ago
You should really ask that question on Digg, Ask Yahoo, and maybe the Bing support forum.
javanix 16y ago
I don't. I might if I ever need any info on algorithms in the future, but I'd wager that there are quite a few professional programmers on here who, not being in college anymore, don't really need to read academic papers.
bigmac 16y ago
The comments on this page seem surprisingly negative. I for one just had a great experience using that service. I've been looking on and off for months for a course on Abstract Algebra (with lectures). So, I type in "abstract algebra" into the search and here's what I get: http://code.google.com/edu/curriculumsearch/results.html?cx=009384408222384877262:p27tltxalv0&q=abstract+algebra&sa=Search&client=google-coop-np&cof=FORID:9;CX:Curriculum http://code.google.com/edu/curriculumsearch/results.html?cx=... Perfect. So this search engine passed my initial test with flying colors.
tptacek 16y ago
Interesting. The first 4 results on the standard SERP for "trie" are Wikipedia, a pretty decent BU article on Tries with Sedgewick-style source code, an intro-to-tries article, and an article about using Tries for spellchecking. The first 4 results on the CS SERP are a Princeton CS PPT on tries, Java source code for a trie, a paper on inductive logic programming using tries, and a tech report on "Nye's Trie" which looks like an interesting distributed systems solution modeled on tries. The results for the two searches for "red-black tree" are approximately the same; all tutorial material. The results for "bloom filter" are like those for "trie": the standard SERP is all tutorial material, and the CS SERP is mostly research. CS search looks like an interesting middle ground between Scholar (which I use all the time) and standard Google. Thanks!
wicknicks 16y ago
Didn't know about this until NOW. The traditional Google knows what I want better than the Curriculum search. Also, a lot of students have enough to study from their lecture material -- what they would want are snippets to specific topics which they find difficult to understand (Again, Google does it pretty well too). In short, even Google can't beat Google.
RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
I've started a poll on this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1756193 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1756193 Only 4 votes so far, but 75% have never heard of it. ADDED IN EDIT: And now over 87% have never heard of it.
philwhln 16y ago
Having recently gone through Google's interview process, I think this site is useful getting up to speed for that, since Google is looking more for Computer Scientists than Computer Programmers.
RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
Based on the poll over here : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1756193 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1756193 : the answer is "Almost Everyone."
pjscott 16y ago
I was a little startled when results didn't appear as soon as I started typing. I'm actually used to instant search now. When did that happen?

117 points by darwinGod 16y ago

I was surprised when I met several CS grads who were not using this, because they hadn't heard about it!

blahedo 16y ago

Well, I didn't. But now that I know about it...

steven_h 16y ago

The stuff on Algorithms is interesting, but not very deep for anyone who knows the basics and is trying to expand their understanding. But I think these are meant to be general lessons rather than specific.

darwinGod 16y ago
I'm guessing you saw only the course listed on the left- not the curriculum search itself. If you use the search, and see lecture notes, assignments,ppts on various topics, you might come across things you didnt know before.

bretpiatt 16y ago

Bit of a link-bait title, this along with various other of the labs search projects are interesting but hard to find. I wonder if they build separate data sets for these lab searches or if it is just a special tag that could also be passed to your main Google search box like labfilter:csci or something?

darwinGod 16y ago
I agree it does look like link-baiting-after all this is a link to Google's own site. But since there are two places to search- Code, and curriculum,PERHAPS Curriculum search is somewhat overlooked. I didnt know about filter:csci before.. I often dont type in 'filter' in my searches. Also, if this was very widely used, I would have expected to see some mashups,competitors- which I didnt. Anyways, if there is even one CS grad who got to know about CS Curriculum search through this post, I think it will increase my real life karma tremendously :-) :-)
- kgermino 16y ago
  If you agree that the title is link-baity and it's your title why don't you change it? (Or for that matter why would you submit it with a link-bait title to begin with?) A better title would be something along the lines of Google CS Curriculum Search.
  - darwinGod 16y ago
    What is really interesting is that, Curriculum search is not new- I have been using it for around 2 years. I just happened to discover from course of conversations, with some of my friends, that they haven't heard about google curriculum search - and I was really surprised. It is a great way to look up tutorials, course materials. If you notice the poll results for Curriculum search (cant draw a definitive conculusion from this sample,still), it seems to be terribly skewed towards people who haven't heard at all about Curriculum search- for a CS-centric community like Hacker news, that's very surprising. Another thing to think about is that- proper vertical search for course contents of top universities around the world, would go about a long way in providing quality "self-education" for students all around the world. Look at khanacademy- when one guy making educational videos on algebra and arithmatic,is making such a huge impact - here we have a good search facility of top cs curriculum /course material of the best universities all around the world, lying idle? I dont want to sound patronising- but just think- what an incredible feature is this in the hands a CS curious hacker in Africa, or for that matter any 'third-world place' -all he/she needs is internet connection! That's it! I really feel sad that something which ought to be very,very popular, probably is gathering dust at Google.
    - kgermino 16y ago
      I completely agree with you that Curriculum is an interesting, useful, and underutilized feature. However that is completely unrelated to what I said. Again, why do you make a submission with a title that you openly admit is link-baity, unless you are trying to artificially increase your karma? I don't know how long you have read HN but your account is less than a month old and intentionally submitting link-bait (especially by a relativity new user) reeks of karma whoring and really pisses me (and I assume/hope a number of other users) off.

xtho 16y ago

You should really ask that question on Digg, Ask Yahoo, and maybe the Bing support forum.

javanix 16y ago

I don't. I might if I ever need any info on algorithms in the future, but I'd wager that there are quite a few professional programmers on here who, not being in college anymore, don't really need to read academic papers.

bigmac 16y ago

The comments on this page seem surprisingly negative. I for one just had a great experience using that service. I've been looking on and off for months for a course on Abstract Algebra (with lectures). So, I type in "abstract algebra" into the search and here's what I get: http://code.google.com/edu/curriculumsearch/results.html?cx=009384408222384877262:p27tltxalv0&q=abstract+algebra&sa=Search&client=google-coop-np&cof=FORID:9;CX:Curriculum http://code.google.com/edu/curriculumsearch/results.html?cx=... Perfect. So this search engine passed my initial test with flying colors.

tptacek 16y ago

Interesting. The first 4 results on the standard SERP for "trie" are Wikipedia, a pretty decent BU article on Tries with Sedgewick-style source code, an intro-to-tries article, and an article about using Tries for spellchecking. The first 4 results on the CS SERP are a Princeton CS PPT on tries, Java source code for a trie, a paper on inductive logic programming using tries, and a tech report on "Nye's Trie" which looks like an interesting distributed systems solution modeled on tries. The results for the two searches for "red-black tree" are approximately the same; all tutorial material. The results for "bloom filter" are like those for "trie": the standard SERP is all tutorial material, and the CS SERP is mostly research. CS search looks like an interesting middle ground between Scholar (which I use all the time) and standard Google. Thanks!

wicknicks 16y ago

Didn't know about this until NOW. The traditional Google knows what I want better than the Curriculum search. Also, a lot of students have enough to study from their lecture material -- what they would want are snippets to specific topics which they find difficult to understand (Again, Google does it pretty well too). In short, even Google can't beat Google.

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago

I've started a poll on this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1756193 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1756193 Only 4 votes so far, but 75% have never heard of it. ADDED IN EDIT: And now over 87% have never heard of it.

philwhln 16y ago

Having recently gone through Google's interview process, I think this site is useful getting up to speed for that, since Google is looking more for Computer Scientists than Computer Programmers.

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago

Based on the poll over here : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1756193 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1756193 : the answer is "Almost Everyone."

pjscott 16y ago

I was a little startled when results didn't appear as soon as I started typing. I'm actually used to instant search now. When did that happen?