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Colleges focus on teaching things that require study to learn, things that you won’t really understand without intentionally analyzing them. Algorithms and data

Colleges focus on teaching things that require study to learn, things that you won’t really understand without intentionally analyzing them. Algorithms and data structures are great examples. An individual is never going to invent A* on the spot without an education, for example. Learning how to use the tools of the trade, e.g. OS, IDE, version control, etc, is not something you need to spend $50k/yr to have a Ph. D. Teach you, it’s something you pick up on your own. A lot of younger adults these days seem to think that college entitles you to a well-paying job, possibly due to the messaging from previous generation(s), but that is not (and never has been) the case.

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thaumasiotes 2y ago
> An individual is never going to invent A* on the spot without an education, for example. What? A* is a brute force solution. Here's a complete description of A*: A* is a breadth-first search in which we use weighted path length, rather than unweighted path length, to calculate tree depth. Tons of people will invent it on the spot. The algorithm is just "let's try everything, in order of desirability, until something works".
- zarathustreal 2y ago
  Look brother you’re not winning any points by implying that you’d be the guy to invent A* on the spot. Without formal education you’re almost certainly not even dealing with concepts like breadth-first search, trees, or nodes, so no, a ton of people will not be inventing it on the spot. Edit: most people don’t even think about recursion as a possibility until taught about it in a formal setting, and even then it’s typically a struggle to understand. Even using a queue, that’s a data structure that a person with a task to do isn’t likely to spend the time to invent on the spot.
  - hnfong 2y ago
    I agree the vast majority of people aren't going to invent A* on the spot. But I don't understand your emphasis on "formal" education. I'm pretty sure a sufficiently smart high school kid interested in the subject could learn all these topics online in a couple months without enrolling in any college.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > Without formal education you’re almost certainly not even dealing with concepts like breadth-first search, trees, or nodes, so no, a ton of people will not be inventing it on the spot. If you're not dealing with nodes, you won't be inventing A* on the spot because you don't have a problem to which it can be applied. But otherwise, it's literally a breadth-first search with the queue replaced by a priority queue. > Even using a queue, that’s a data structure that a person with a task to do isn’t likely to spend the time to invent on the spot. A to-do list is as simple as data structures get. A heap is complex, but if you want to insist on developing everything used by the algorithm from scratch, the person faced with this problem is likely to just use a sorted list. Try it out. Ask some people how they'd find the shortest path between two points through a weighted graph (use whatever terminology you want); see what they say.
hnfong 2y ago
It's true that an individual isn't going to invent A* on the spot. They learn how to use it. An individual isn't going to invent a VCS either. They learn how to use it. I'm not seeing the difference here. If somebody needs to use A* search, it's entirely plausible they just pick it up in a couple days on their own without spending 4 years studying a CS degree. In a sense most knowledge these days are just a youtube video away. To be fair the world has changed so much in the past ~30 years that I think in general universities should be thinking long and hard what their position in society ought to be going forward. They can't gatekeep knowledge any more, and word has gone out that degrees don't imply employability. Lots of people believe universities are required to learn theoretical knowledge, but I don't see what's special about those over trade skills (other than universities' traditional gatekeeping roles). I'm pretty sure college degrees did open up a lot of doors in the past than today though. A simple matter of supply and demand I guess.

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thaumasiotes 2y ago

> An individual is never going to invent A* on the spot without an education, for example. What? A* is a brute force solution. Here's a complete description of A*: A* is a breadth-first search in which we use weighted path length, rather than unweighted path length, to calculate tree depth. Tons of people will invent it on the spot. The algorithm is just "let's try everything, in order of desirability, until something works".

zarathustreal 2y ago
Look brother you’re not winning any points by implying that you’d be the guy to invent A* on the spot. Without formal education you’re almost certainly not even dealing with concepts like breadth-first search, trees, or nodes, so no, a ton of people will not be inventing it on the spot. Edit: most people don’t even think about recursion as a possibility until taught about it in a formal setting, and even then it’s typically a struggle to understand. Even using a queue, that’s a data structure that a person with a task to do isn’t likely to spend the time to invent on the spot.
- hnfong 2y ago
  I agree the vast majority of people aren't going to invent A* on the spot. But I don't understand your emphasis on "formal" education. I'm pretty sure a sufficiently smart high school kid interested in the subject could learn all these topics online in a couple months without enrolling in any college.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > Without formal education you’re almost certainly not even dealing with concepts like breadth-first search, trees, or nodes, so no, a ton of people will not be inventing it on the spot. If you're not dealing with nodes, you won't be inventing A* on the spot because you don't have a problem to which it can be applied. But otherwise, it's literally a breadth-first search with the queue replaced by a priority queue. > Even using a queue, that’s a data structure that a person with a task to do isn’t likely to spend the time to invent on the spot. A to-do list is as simple as data structures get. A heap is complex, but if you want to insist on developing everything used by the algorithm from scratch, the person faced with this problem is likely to just use a sorted list. Try it out. Ask some people how they'd find the shortest path between two points through a weighted graph (use whatever terminology you want); see what they say.

hnfong 2y ago

It's true that an individual isn't going to invent A* on the spot. They learn how to use it. An individual isn't going to invent a VCS either. They learn how to use it. I'm not seeing the difference here. If somebody needs to use A* search, it's entirely plausible they just pick it up in a couple days on their own without spending 4 years studying a CS degree. In a sense most knowledge these days are just a youtube video away. To be fair the world has changed so much in the past ~30 years that I think in general universities should be thinking long and hard what their position in society ought to be going forward. They can't gatekeep knowledge any more, and word has gone out that degrees don't imply employability. Lots of people believe universities are required to learn theoretical knowledge, but I don't see what's special about those over trade skills (other than universities' traditional gatekeeping roles). I'm pretty sure college degrees did open up a lot of doors in the past than today though. A simple matter of supply and demand I guess.