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Computer Science is an unusually accessible field of engineering for self-learners. Purveyors of fine computer systems and programming languages market them by

by weel 19y ago

Computer Science is an unusually accessible field of engineering for self-learners. Purveyors of fine computer systems and programming languages market them by writing oodles of documentation, often free. There is an amazing amount to be learned just from reading the GNU manuals. All the machinery you need in order to play around with most of the latest new technology is available at Fry's. But I should probably warn you against the idea that you can become a good programmer simply by learning to use some of the tools. That's like becoming a chess player by studying the rules of the game, and the mechanics of chess clocks. If you just want to make sure you can understand your more technical business partner when s/he talks shop, or even do some simple programming, surely, you can get a long way simply by knowing the syntax of a programming language or two and some basic UNIX. I've seen some self-taught programmers do amazing things. But for most jobs that are actually technically innovative, you're going to have to sit down and learn some stuff about algorithms, data structures, concurrency, and so on. (This is what I shall snobistically call "real CS".) Fortunately, even "real CS" can, with lots of motivation, be learned outside of formal academia. I would recommend you start with Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (the book and three different series of free video lectures are on the net for free). In fact, even if your goal is just to understand the techies, SICP is probably still about as good as it gets, and the old Abelson and Sussman video lectures are quite amusing. Other great resources are ArsDigita University and OpenCourseWare.

davidw 19y ago
"Computer Science is an unusually accessible field of engineering for self-learners" Isn't it ever! If you all will pardon me for going on a bit more about my site squeezed books, one of the things that is very frustrating about trying to learn something about business, economics, and marketing is that you realize there is this gaping hole in on-line resources compared to what I know and love - computers, where you can do everything on your own.
- corentin 19y ago
  I'm learning economics, marketing and business as well and there are good resources online (although, that's true, I'm reading a few books as well, but it's the same for computer stuff in fact). Among the resources I know and use are: Paul Graham's essays, like many people here (I prefer reading them on paper anyway, but all of them are available on his website); Joel Spolsky's blog (joelonsoftware.com) used to have very good articles (lately it's not as good as it used to be); he had the best of them published, too. Eric Sink's blog (software.ericsink.com); great articles on marketing and business for geeks. There are good articles about the basics of business in the Trizoko online business journal: http://www.trizle.com/trizoko http://www.trizle.com/trizoko On changethis.com you'll find a lot of great PDFs on business subjects (very good resource; there is good stuff by Seth Godin here) For economics, I'm reading the work of Frédéric Bastiat, available online here: bastiat.org.
  - davidw 19y ago
    Sure, that's all good stuff, but there's a difference between "reading" and "learning". The part of the learning process that works so wonderfully in the world of computers is that you can: 1. Read something 2. Try it out. 3. Ask questions of others about the results, then go read more, try it again, and so on. Not quite so easy for economics, business and marketing.
  - weel 19y ago
    Good old Bastiat... That's definitely fairly remote from "mainstream" economics these days, although there is a lot of sense to the proposition that the works of the classical economists are more practically useful than the abstract modeling you'd learn as an economics major. If you nonetheless want, for whatever reason, to learn something akin to the modern standard microeconomics curriculum, albeit with a good deal more game theory thrown in, I can recommend the free (Creative Commons!) textbook by Preston McAfee at http://www.introecon.com http://www.introecon.com

by weel 19y ago

davidw 19y ago

"Computer Science is an unusually accessible field of engineering for self-learners" Isn't it ever! If you all will pardon me for going on a bit more about my site squeezed books, one of the things that is very frustrating about trying to learn something about business, economics, and marketing is that you realize there is this gaping hole in on-line resources compared to what I know and love - computers, where you can do everything on your own.

corentin 19y ago
I'm learning economics, marketing and business as well and there are good resources online (although, that's true, I'm reading a few books as well, but it's the same for computer stuff in fact). Among the resources I know and use are: Paul Graham's essays, like many people here (I prefer reading them on paper anyway, but all of them are available on his website); Joel Spolsky's blog (joelonsoftware.com) used to have very good articles (lately it's not as good as it used to be); he had the best of them published, too. Eric Sink's blog (software.ericsink.com); great articles on marketing and business for geeks. There are good articles about the basics of business in the Trizoko online business journal: http://www.trizle.com/trizoko http://www.trizle.com/trizoko On changethis.com you'll find a lot of great PDFs on business subjects (very good resource; there is good stuff by Seth Godin here) For economics, I'm reading the work of Frédéric Bastiat, available online here: bastiat.org.
- davidw 19y ago
  Sure, that's all good stuff, but there's a difference between "reading" and "learning". The part of the learning process that works so wonderfully in the world of computers is that you can: 1. Read something 2. Try it out. 3. Ask questions of others about the results, then go read more, try it again, and so on. Not quite so easy for economics, business and marketing.
- weel 19y ago
  Good old Bastiat... That's definitely fairly remote from "mainstream" economics these days, although there is a lot of sense to the proposition that the works of the classical economists are more practically useful than the abstract modeling you'd learn as an economics major. If you nonetheless want, for whatever reason, to learn something akin to the modern standard microeconomics curriculum, albeit with a good deal more game theory thrown in, I can recommend the free (Creative Commons!) textbook by Preston McAfee at http://www.introecon.com http://www.introecon.com