6 ms·

I've been learning a few new CS things recently and honestly I mostly find inverse correlation between cost and quality. There are books from oreilly and paid

I've been learning a few new CS things recently and honestly I mostly find inverse correlation between cost and quality. There are books from oreilly and paid MOOC courses that are just padded with lots of unnecessary text or silly "concept definition" quizzes to make them seem worth the price. And there are excellent free YT video lectures, free books or blog posts. Andrej's YT videos are one great example. https://course.fast.ai https://course.fast.ai is another.

simmanian 3y ago
Do you have recommendations for other high quality courses teaching CS things?
- davidbarker 3y ago
  I can highly recommend CS50 from Harvard (https://www.youtube.com/@cs50 https://www.youtube.com/@cs50). Even after being involved in tech for 25+ years, I learnt a lot from just the first lecture alone. Disclosure: Professor Malan is a friend of mine, but I was a fan of CS50 long before that!
- GaneshSuriya 3y ago
  - operating system in three easy pieces (https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP) is incredible for learning OS internals - beej's networking guide is the best thing for network layer stuff https://beej.us/guide/ https://beej.us/guide/ - explained from first principles great too https://explained-from-first-principles.com/ https://explained-from-first-principles.com/ - pintos from Stanford https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs140/projects/pintos/pintos_1.html https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs140/projects/pintos/pintos_...
  - vb234 3y ago
    Wow. Thanks for sharing. I had no idea that Professor Remzi and his wife Andrea wrote a book on Operating Systems. I loved his class (took it almost 22 years ago.) Will have to check his book out.
- diimdeep 3y ago
  Build an 8-bit computer from scratch https://eater.net/8bit/ https://eater.net/8bit/ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypGqImE405J2565dvjafglHU https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypGqImE405J2... Andreas Kling. OS hacking: Making the system boot with 256MB RAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rapB5s0W5uk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rapB5s0W5uk MIT 6.006 Introduction to Algorithms, Spring 2020 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63EdVPNLG3ToM6LaEUuStEY https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63EdVPNLG3T... MIT 6.824: Distributed Systems https://www.youtube.com/@6.824 https://www.youtube.com/@6.824 MIT 6.172 Performance Engineering of Software Systems, Fall 2018 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63VIBQVWguXxZZi0566y7Wf https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63VIBQVWguX... CalTech cs124 Operating Systems https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=caltech+cs124&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=caltech+cs124&ia=web try searching here at HN for recommendations https://hn.algolia.com https://hn.algolia.com
  - nojvek 3y ago
    Thank you a ton for the links.
- codelobe 3y ago
  Replying to bookmark(hoard) all the thread links later. Fellow hackers might also enjoy: https://www.nand2tetris.org/ https://www.nand2tetris.org/
- Tomte 3y ago
  nand2tetris: https://www.nand2tetris.org/ https://www.nand2tetris.org/ I like the book better than the online course.
thfuran 3y ago
>And there are excellent free YT video lectures, free books or blog posts. There's also a tremendous amount of extremely low quality YouTube and blog content.
- progbits 3y ago
  Sure. I don't claim the free content is all good. But from my limited sample size, the best free content is better than the best paid content.
GaneshSuriya 3y ago
It's not only about the cost, though. There's an inverse correlation with the glossiness of the content as well. If the web page /content is too polished, they're most likely optimizing for wooing users. Unlike a lot of the examples I gave in the sibling comments. Where the optimization is only on the love for the topic being discussed
- rahimnathwani 3y ago
  There's an inverse correlation with the glossiness of the content as well. This is probably due to survivorship bias. Sites that have poor content and poor visual appeal (glossiness) never get on your radar. i.e. Berkson's Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox
danielmarkbruce 3y ago
There are some extremely good CS textbooks which cost money. That being said, many good ML/AI texts are free. But it's not easy reading.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lynx23 3y ago
Full ACK. I have also grown weary of payed course offerings, because many I have checked out were basically low quality or shallow.

simmanian 3y ago

Do you have recommendations for other high quality courses teaching CS things?

davidbarker 3y ago
I can highly recommend CS50 from Harvard (https://www.youtube.com/@cs50 https://www.youtube.com/@cs50). Even after being involved in tech for 25+ years, I learnt a lot from just the first lecture alone. Disclosure: Professor Malan is a friend of mine, but I was a fan of CS50 long before that!
GaneshSuriya 3y ago
- operating system in three easy pieces (https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP https://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP) is incredible for learning OS internals - beej's networking guide is the best thing for network layer stuff https://beej.us/guide/ https://beej.us/guide/ - explained from first principles great too https://explained-from-first-principles.com/ https://explained-from-first-principles.com/ - pintos from Stanford https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs140/projects/pintos/pintos_1.html https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs140/projects/pintos/pintos_...
- vb234 3y ago
  Wow. Thanks for sharing. I had no idea that Professor Remzi and his wife Andrea wrote a book on Operating Systems. I loved his class (took it almost 22 years ago.) Will have to check his book out.
diimdeep 3y ago
Build an 8-bit computer from scratch https://eater.net/8bit/ https://eater.net/8bit/ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypGqImE405J2565dvjafglHU https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypGqImE405J2... Andreas Kling. OS hacking: Making the system boot with 256MB RAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rapB5s0W5uk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rapB5s0W5uk MIT 6.006 Introduction to Algorithms, Spring 2020 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63EdVPNLG3ToM6LaEUuStEY https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63EdVPNLG3T... MIT 6.824: Distributed Systems https://www.youtube.com/@6.824 https://www.youtube.com/@6.824 MIT 6.172 Performance Engineering of Software Systems, Fall 2018 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63VIBQVWguXxZZi0566y7Wf https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63VIBQVWguX... CalTech cs124 Operating Systems https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=caltech+cs124&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=caltech+cs124&ia=web try searching here at HN for recommendations https://hn.algolia.com https://hn.algolia.com
- nojvek 3y ago
  Thank you a ton for the links.
codelobe 3y ago
Replying to bookmark(hoard) all the thread links later. Fellow hackers might also enjoy: https://www.nand2tetris.org/ https://www.nand2tetris.org/
Tomte 3y ago
nand2tetris: https://www.nand2tetris.org/ https://www.nand2tetris.org/ I like the book better than the online course.

thfuran 3y ago

>And there are excellent free YT video lectures, free books or blog posts. There's also a tremendous amount of extremely low quality YouTube and blog content.

progbits 3y ago
Sure. I don't claim the free content is all good. But from my limited sample size, the best free content is better than the best paid content.

GaneshSuriya 3y ago

It's not only about the cost, though. There's an inverse correlation with the glossiness of the content as well. If the web page /content is too polished, they're most likely optimizing for wooing users. Unlike a lot of the examples I gave in the sibling comments. Where the optimization is only on the love for the topic being discussed

rahimnathwani 3y ago
There's an inverse correlation with the glossiness of the content as well. This is probably due to survivorship bias. Sites that have poor content and poor visual appeal (glossiness) never get on your radar. i.e. Berkson's Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox

danielmarkbruce 3y ago

There are some extremely good CS textbooks which cost money. That being said, many good ML/AI texts are free. But it's not easy reading.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

lynx23 3y ago

Full ACK. I have also grown weary of payed course offerings, because many I have checked out were basically low quality or shallow.