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Perhaps I've been out of formal education for too long (esp. on the mathematical side of things), but I did find the material quite challenging, more so the pro

Perhaps I've been out of formal education for too long (esp. on the mathematical side of things), but I did find the material quite challenging, more so the problem sets than the programming challenges. Part of that was emotional, I didn't do a computer science degree and thus find this kind of stuff almost... intimidating. It's the sort of stuff that gets asked at 'serious' interviews and thus I've had a sense of it being somehow too clever, beyond me. It's not helped by posts like this, the arrogant 'oh it was all too easy' tone is frustrating. Not everything in life is a competition, and as others have said, it ought to be about actually learning something, not proving how wonderfully clever you are. What's particularly frustrating in all of this is that I found this particular course wonderfully lectured, and the material fascinating. Reading stuff like this takes away that sense of fascination at the material and replaces it with a sense of being a not quite good enough participant in a competition I didn't want to be a part of. /rant

icegreentea 14y ago
I'm gonna back you up here, though from a slightly different perspective. People like you are exactly why this course seems easy for some other people. As what is essentially an introductory course for this subject, it should not be aiming to really challenge the top quartile of the class (or whatever). It should aim to provide the best possible foundation for the next course for as many people as reasonable. The fact that the course has managed to reach out to all sorts of people (including someone like you) is something that should be celebrated. That it was designed so that someone who isn't 'good at math' (whatever that means) struggled a bit, but still got through it all is amazing. That's something that really makes a great introductory course. After all, it's stupid easy to make a course hard, or to assign shit loads of work. The real trick is making it just hard enough.
- singular 14y ago
  Not to make this too much about ego :-) but I am actually quite good at maths, did v. well at school, did engineering degree, etc. so I'm not sure I'm a great example, rather I am out of practice and not as comfortable with this stuff now as I once was :-)
wglb 14y ago
I didn't read it that way at all. Instead of seeing oh it was all too easy i heard I wish it had been harder; and I didn't see any competitive thread in it at all.

icegreentea 14y ago

I'm gonna back you up here, though from a slightly different perspective. People like you are exactly why this course seems easy for some other people. As what is essentially an introductory course for this subject, it should not be aiming to really challenge the top quartile of the class (or whatever). It should aim to provide the best possible foundation for the next course for as many people as reasonable. The fact that the course has managed to reach out to all sorts of people (including someone like you) is something that should be celebrated. That it was designed so that someone who isn't 'good at math' (whatever that means) struggled a bit, but still got through it all is amazing. That's something that really makes a great introductory course. After all, it's stupid easy to make a course hard, or to assign shit loads of work. The real trick is making it just hard enough.

singular 14y ago
Not to make this too much about ego :-) but I am actually quite good at maths, did v. well at school, did engineering degree, etc. so I'm not sure I'm a great example, rather I am out of practice and not as comfortable with this stuff now as I once was :-)

wglb 14y ago

I didn't read it that way at all. Instead of seeing oh it was all too easy i heard I wish it had been harder; and I didn't see any competitive thread in it at all.