5 ms·

I don't get what your objection is? It's obviously a mini-essay question, a chance to show your opinions and reason about ideas. Seems good to me. Do you not

I don't get what your objection is? It's obviously a mini-essay question, a chance to show your opinions and reason about ideas. Seems good to me. Do you not like it because it's not a yes-no question? Welcome to reality, where not all questions have simple answers, even in CS. That's probably why it's a top-tier university! Whatever you do don't look at this exam paper from Cambridge - it will blow your mind http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/u_grads/Tripos/Ethics/Past_Exams/1b_Paper_03-2012.pdf http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/u_grads/Tripos/Ethics/Past_Exams/1.... Example question "What makes death bad?"

STajbakhsh 13y ago
I think my objection is mainly due to the unscientific nature of the question. A question like this that is looking at the goals of the OS is very objective and has a clear answer. I would expect a question to be worded like this in a Philosophy, Law etc. exam (like the link posted by you). In my opinion, there are some questions, even in CS, that can be open-ended and be very interesting to attempt but this certainly isn't one.
- mike_mikeson 13y ago
  But people make technical design decisions in operating systems based on trying to make the operating system as conceptually simple as possible, which is what he means by beautiful, which I hope you would know from reading the literature. I would relish this essay question - I would have written about the history of Unix, the evolution towards Plan 9 and why it failed. These are important issues in CS, and if you are ignorant of them you are likely to repeat them. Your professor is testing that you have understood these lessons from history. I think you need to retract your implication that it's somehow an inherently bad or embarrassing choice for a question. All you have left is that you are fundamentally opposed to any philosophical, historical or human factor thinking in CS, and I don't think that's a supportable position.
  - STajbakhsh 13y ago
    Those are interesting points and luckily I am aware of them. I quite like the angle at which you're looking at this; it made me think again.
    - mike_mikeson 13y ago
      We should be very very thankful for these questions. They differentiate the people that have really read around and understand what it is that we're doing in CS, and those that have just been to the lectures.
- pizza 13y ago
  slightly off topic, but there are a number of people who'd be inclined to say that very few observations, if any at all, are objective.

STajbakhsh 13y ago

I think my objection is mainly due to the unscientific nature of the question. A question like this that is looking at the goals of the OS is very objective and has a clear answer. I would expect a question to be worded like this in a Philosophy, Law etc. exam (like the link posted by you). In my opinion, there are some questions, even in CS, that can be open-ended and be very interesting to attempt but this certainly isn't one.

mike_mikeson 13y ago
But people make technical design decisions in operating systems based on trying to make the operating system as conceptually simple as possible, which is what he means by beautiful, which I hope you would know from reading the literature. I would relish this essay question - I would have written about the history of Unix, the evolution towards Plan 9 and why it failed. These are important issues in CS, and if you are ignorant of them you are likely to repeat them. Your professor is testing that you have understood these lessons from history. I think you need to retract your implication that it's somehow an inherently bad or embarrassing choice for a question. All you have left is that you are fundamentally opposed to any philosophical, historical or human factor thinking in CS, and I don't think that's a supportable position.
- STajbakhsh 13y ago
  Those are interesting points and luckily I am aware of them. I quite like the angle at which you're looking at this; it made me think again.
  - mike_mikeson 13y ago
    We should be very very thankful for these questions. They differentiate the people that have really read around and understand what it is that we're doing in CS, and those that have just been to the lectures.
pizza 13y ago
slightly off topic, but there are a number of people who'd be inclined to say that very few observations, if any at all, are objective.