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Hi all! We (@anishathalye, @jjgo, and @jonhoo) have long felt that while university CS classes are great at teaching specific topics, they often leave it to stu

by Jonhoo 8y ago

Hi all! We (@anishathalye, @jjgo, and @jonhoo) have long felt that while university CS classes are great at teaching specific topics, they often leave it to students to figure out a lot of the common knowledge about how to actually use your computer. And in particular, how to use it efficiently. There’s just no class in the undergrad curriculum that teaches you how to become familiar with the system you’re working with! Students are expected to know about, or figure out, the shell, editors, remote access and file management, version control, debugging and profiling utilities, and all sorts of other useful tools on their own. Often times, they won’t even know that many of these tools exist, and instead do things in roundabout ways or simply be left frustrated about their development environment. To help mitigate this, we decided to run this short lecture series at MIT during the January Independent Activities Period that we called “Hacker Tools” (in reference to “hacker culture”, not hacking computers). Our hope was that through this class, and the resulting lecture materials and videos, we might be able to bootstrap students’ knowledge about the tools that are available to them, which they can then put to use throughout their time at university, and beyond. We’ve shared both the lecture notes and the recordings of the lectures in the hopes that people outside of MIT may also find these resources useful in making better use of their tools. If that turns out to be true, we’re also thinking of re-doing the videos in screen-cast style with live chat and a proper microphone when we get the time. If that sounds interesting to you, and if you have ideas about other things you’d like to see us cover, please leave a comment below; we’d love to hear from you! We’re sure there are also plenty of cool tools that we didn’t get to cover in this series that you all know and love. Please share them below along with a short description so we can all learn something new! Anish, Jose, and Jon

gumby 8y ago
> ...[universities] often leave it to students to figure out a lot of the common knowledge about how to actually use your computer. Now I'm out in the real world (MIT class of '86!) I think this is more of an MIT thing -- many graduates of other schools get explicit training in things that the MIT faculty, fairly or not, assumes students will simply pick up. And this is despite the heavy emphasis on actually doing stuff, especially in the school of engineering. Actually I've had hit or miss results hiring freshly-graduated MIT grads (maybe less so VI-A) for this reason, though once they are up to speed they've mostly been great. Really good use of IAP by the way!
- akhilcacharya 8y ago
  > many graduates of other schools get explicit training in things that the MIT faculty, fairly or not, assumes students will simply pick up. And this is despite the heavy emphasis on actually doing stuff, uh...I graduated from a low tier state school that was notable in our state for focusing on practical matters....and we didn't get 'explicitly trained' on this either. Most people do just pick it up.
  - gumby 8y ago
    Well, I appears from my experience a surprising number of MIT students don’t, making this mini-course popular. As an MIT grad myself I should be biased to think otherwise, and I certainly hope the credential stands for something good. But I haven’t found much difference in programmers 5 years out of school — it’s been attitude that has mattered more.
  - hinzed1127 8y ago
    I got a CS minor from a top-5 program, and while a lot of the core classes definitely covered some of these topics in various degrees, it's really nice to see all of these aggregated in a concise way. While you definitely do pick stuff up over time, this is arranged in a way that I could see myself preferring to reference this rather than find that one stack overflow answer that clicked with me at the time. Now that I at least have a better understanding of these concepts 3.5 years into real-world web development, this seems like a good resource to cover my bases better now.
- bubblethink 8y ago
  >many graduates of other schools get explicit training From my undergrad programming class, which was a while ago, I remember that the first class had a brief intro to vim. But something like vim is an acquired taste. I never used or appreciated vim until much later when I saw others at work use it. During school, I think I used geany since that's relatively easy to use and install on ubuntu. So maybe there is some merit to spending more time on tools. However, my experience is from before everything was so easily accessible on the internet (i.e., pre github, stackoverflow etc.). So maybe these days it's not such a big deal.
alpb 8y ago
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyzOVJj3bHQuiujH1lpn8cA9dsyulbYRv https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyzOVJj3bHQuiujH1lpn8... Thanks a lot for this! It appears like the recording doesn't really capture the screen well for multiple videos. I wish it was more professionally done, it could've been useful for years to come.
- anishathalye 8y ago
  For most of the videos, we do have screen recordings (e.g. see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW2jn9Okjhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW2jn9Okjhw). Sadly, we're missing screen recordings for a couple videos (such as the shell video, where we had some issues with the screen recording software). We're thinking of re-doing some of those videos in a screen-cast style so that they'll be more useful for viewers.
idsout 8y ago
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with the world. I'm excited to follow along with this and I love your Rust streams.
nmstoker 8y ago
Will need to take a deeper look later but from a quick skim I really like the approach taken: a well curated list of time tested tools across each area, going deeper where applicable. For me the key point above is about a lack of tool knowledge causing "roundabout approaches" and frustration. Knowledge of these tools can do so much to demystify and make the seemingly arcane start to slot into place.
acidburnNSA 8y ago
That's funny, I recently had the same revelation (that it's hard to discover these things) with engineering students in mind. I wrote an e-book called Digital Superpowers, covering many of the same topics you did. I added some general interest things on art and publishing too. I think I like your approach better. Anyway, my list of topics is as follows, maybe you want to consider adding a few of them to your list? Password Managers • 2-factor authentication • Virtual machines • Package managers • Command line • Routers • QR codes • Port forwarding • Python • Pandas • Onion routing • Ad-blocking • PDF reordering • Flow charts • Regular Expressions • Time-lapses • Encryption • Column edit • Digital photo editing in RAW • Audio noise reduction • Vector graphics • Making websites • DJing • LaTeX publishing • Reference management • pandoc • git version control • Programming • Web apps • Self-hosting • Home automation • Monte Carlo • VPNs, • ImageMagick • Linear regression • ffmpeg • Sphinx • Robotics
- freshcatch_ 8y ago
  this is insanely ambitious, and in a weird order
  - acidburnNSA 8y ago
    You're right. And "covering" is a strong term for the book. It only introduces them, offers a few exercises, and moves on. It's still 200 pages. It's intended to help engineering students (mechanical, civil/structural, nuclear, etc.) discover these wonders and then choose which ones to go deep with based on their needs and interests.
    - bigmit37 8y ago
      Thanks for sharing and seems it would be useful for non-engineering students as myself as well. Going to check it out =)
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Superpowers-readily-available-turbocharge-productivity-ebook/dp/B07N67BD9T https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Superpowers-readily-available... That's the one? EDIT: I guess it is, via https://digitalsuperpowers.com/ https://digitalsuperpowers.com/. The list of topics is great, gonna check the book out!
agumonkey 8y ago
Do you like that kind of talks ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCZJblyT_XM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCZJblyT_XM Gary Bernhardt - The Unix Chainsaw

by Jonhoo 8y ago

gumby 8y ago

> ...[universities] often leave it to students to figure out a lot of the common knowledge about how to actually use your computer. Now I'm out in the real world (MIT class of '86!) I think this is more of an MIT thing -- many graduates of other schools get explicit training in things that the MIT faculty, fairly or not, assumes students will simply pick up. And this is despite the heavy emphasis on actually doing stuff, especially in the school of engineering. Actually I've had hit or miss results hiring freshly-graduated MIT grads (maybe less so VI-A) for this reason, though once they are up to speed they've mostly been great. Really good use of IAP by the way!

akhilcacharya 8y ago
> many graduates of other schools get explicit training in things that the MIT faculty, fairly or not, assumes students will simply pick up. And this is despite the heavy emphasis on actually doing stuff, uh...I graduated from a low tier state school that was notable in our state for focusing on practical matters....and we didn't get 'explicitly trained' on this either. Most people do just pick it up.
- gumby 8y ago
  Well, I appears from my experience a surprising number of MIT students don’t, making this mini-course popular. As an MIT grad myself I should be biased to think otherwise, and I certainly hope the credential stands for something good. But I haven’t found much difference in programmers 5 years out of school — it’s been attitude that has mattered more.
- hinzed1127 8y ago
  I got a CS minor from a top-5 program, and while a lot of the core classes definitely covered some of these topics in various degrees, it's really nice to see all of these aggregated in a concise way. While you definitely do pick stuff up over time, this is arranged in a way that I could see myself preferring to reference this rather than find that one stack overflow answer that clicked with me at the time. Now that I at least have a better understanding of these concepts 3.5 years into real-world web development, this seems like a good resource to cover my bases better now.
bubblethink 8y ago
>many graduates of other schools get explicit training From my undergrad programming class, which was a while ago, I remember that the first class had a brief intro to vim. But something like vim is an acquired taste. I never used or appreciated vim until much later when I saw others at work use it. During school, I think I used geany since that's relatively easy to use and install on ubuntu. So maybe there is some merit to spending more time on tools. However, my experience is from before everything was so easily accessible on the internet (i.e., pre github, stackoverflow etc.). So maybe these days it's not such a big deal.

alpb 8y ago

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyzOVJj3bHQuiujH1lpn8cA9dsyulbYRv https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyzOVJj3bHQuiujH1lpn8... Thanks a lot for this! It appears like the recording doesn't really capture the screen well for multiple videos. I wish it was more professionally done, it could've been useful for years to come.

anishathalye 8y ago
For most of the videos, we do have screen recordings (e.g. see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW2jn9Okjhw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW2jn9Okjhw). Sadly, we're missing screen recordings for a couple videos (such as the shell video, where we had some issues with the screen recording software). We're thinking of re-doing some of those videos in a screen-cast style so that they'll be more useful for viewers.

idsout 8y ago

Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with the world. I'm excited to follow along with this and I love your Rust streams.

nmstoker 8y ago

Will need to take a deeper look later but from a quick skim I really like the approach taken: a well curated list of time tested tools across each area, going deeper where applicable. For me the key point above is about a lack of tool knowledge causing "roundabout approaches" and frustration. Knowledge of these tools can do so much to demystify and make the seemingly arcane start to slot into place.

acidburnNSA 8y ago

That's funny, I recently had the same revelation (that it's hard to discover these things) with engineering students in mind. I wrote an e-book called Digital Superpowers, covering many of the same topics you did. I added some general interest things on art and publishing too. I think I like your approach better. Anyway, my list of topics is as follows, maybe you want to consider adding a few of them to your list? Password Managers • 2-factor authentication • Virtual machines • Package managers • Command line • Routers • QR codes • Port forwarding • Python • Pandas • Onion routing • Ad-blocking • PDF reordering • Flow charts • Regular Expressions • Time-lapses • Encryption • Column edit • Digital photo editing in RAW • Audio noise reduction • Vector graphics • Making websites • DJing • LaTeX publishing • Reference management • pandoc • git version control • Programming • Web apps • Self-hosting • Home automation • Monte Carlo • VPNs, • ImageMagick • Linear regression • ffmpeg • Sphinx • Robotics

freshcatch_ 8y ago
this is insanely ambitious, and in a weird order
- acidburnNSA 8y ago
  You're right. And "covering" is a strong term for the book. It only introduces them, offers a few exercises, and moves on. It's still 200 pages. It's intended to help engineering students (mechanical, civil/structural, nuclear, etc.) discover these wonders and then choose which ones to go deep with based on their needs and interests.
  - bigmit37 8y ago
    Thanks for sharing and seems it would be useful for non-engineering students as myself as well. Going to check it out =)
TeMPOraL 8y ago
https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Superpowers-readily-available-turbocharge-productivity-ebook/dp/B07N67BD9T https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Superpowers-readily-available... That's the one? EDIT: I guess it is, via https://digitalsuperpowers.com/ https://digitalsuperpowers.com/. The list of topics is great, gonna check the book out!

agumonkey 8y ago

Do you like that kind of talks ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCZJblyT_XM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCZJblyT_XM Gary Bernhardt - The Unix Chainsaw