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OK, to clarify, this is a cool book/course. I don't mean to disparage the author, they've done an excellent job condensing a large body of material. However: T

OK, to clarify, this is a cool book/course. I don't mean to disparage the author, they've done an excellent job condensing a large body of material. However: The title is very ambitious. This is not really building a computer from first principles, there are some steps skipped. This is a high-level overview of modern computers, it's worth noting there's a lot of depth to be explored. Everyone agrees custom languages are not great. They don't really give you a lot of transferable skills, it would be cool if you really implemented C or Lisp, and did it in Verilog or VHDL. This style of course may suit a particular type of student, who enjoys a broad overview or wants to specialize in only one area. Personally my preferred way to learn is in depth, serially, so this doesn't really apply to me. My degree also covered most of these topics anyways, so picking wasn't really a problem. I realize this doesn't apply to everyone. A lot of comments say 'a motivated student will just learn that on their own'. This material is a good jumping off point, but (once again, in my experience) the theory is the hardest stuff to learn on your own. I would rather do the 'dull' stuff in class, then teach myself how to make games out of it (as opposed to being taught how to make games, and having to learn best practices, design techniques, theory). Some commenters were also saying that this is unique, or it should be taught everywhere. It is unique in that it's a single, very dense class, but the material is definitely available elsewhere, in a format that I find easier to learn from. I wanted to make it clear that, if this is interesting, I think a computer engineering degree will let you learn the same stuff, but in much greater detail. Taking this class first might motivate some people, but I would find it redundant. In conclusion, this is great, but it's not for everyone. If you like all the content but you're disappointed by how brief it seems, try computer engineering. edit: I forgot, a lot of comments implied that understanding this material helped them do higher level programming. It's certainly cool to have a soup-to-nuts knowledge, but I still don't really understand how it could help without the topics that actually impact performance like caching, pipelining, I/O, etc.

eaurouge 13y ago
For whatever reason, you feel the need to defend the value of your degree. You forget that people have various reasons (some personal) for seeking knowledge. It's not always about gaining marketable skills or about learning all there is to know about a subject. Many of the points you make in your critique (lack of depth, etc) are obvious to anyone that decides to read the book. As an example, the book Learn Modern 3D Graphics Programming [1] has been posted and praised on HN in the past, but it should be obvious to anyone that there's a lot more to Computer Graphics than that book alone. I think your comments would be more valuable if you had something more positive to add, perhaps in addition to criticism. If this book glosses over some topics, perhaps you could suggest some learning resources for those topics. 1. http://www.arcsynthesis.org/gltut/ http://www.arcsynthesis.org/gltut/
- mmcnickle 13y ago
  I have to agree. The GP is getting bent out of shape. I think him describing the limitations of the course would be useful if not worded so defensively. This is like a professional fabricator complaining that the 10 hour welding course at night-school doesn't cover welding aluminium. I don't think anyone was under the impression that this was a replacement for a an engineering degree. People will do this course because it's cool to build stuff you thought was beyond you. Also, enroll in a welding course, it's cool to be able to build big stuff out of metal too.

eaurouge 13y ago

For whatever reason, you feel the need to defend the value of your degree. You forget that people have various reasons (some personal) for seeking knowledge. It's not always about gaining marketable skills or about learning all there is to know about a subject. Many of the points you make in your critique (lack of depth, etc) are obvious to anyone that decides to read the book. As an example, the book Learn Modern 3D Graphics Programming [1] has been posted and praised on HN in the past, but it should be obvious to anyone that there's a lot more to Computer Graphics than that book alone. I think your comments would be more valuable if you had something more positive to add, perhaps in addition to criticism. If this book glosses over some topics, perhaps you could suggest some learning resources for those topics. 1. http://www.arcsynthesis.org/gltut/ http://www.arcsynthesis.org/gltut/

mmcnickle 13y ago
I have to agree. The GP is getting bent out of shape. I think him describing the limitations of the course would be useful if not worded so defensively. This is like a professional fabricator complaining that the 10 hour welding course at night-school doesn't cover welding aluminium. I don't think anyone was under the impression that this was a replacement for a an engineering degree. People will do this course because it's cool to build stuff you thought was beyond you. Also, enroll in a welding course, it's cool to be able to build big stuff out of metal too.