pgbovine

18 ms·

121.
by pgbovine 13y ago
If you want to inspire someone to learn to program (and I'm on the fence as to whether its really possible to do so if someone isn't inclined to hack things themselves anyway), then present them a real world task from their work&
122.
by pgbovine 13y ago
have you seen the output of make? or pdflatex? if anyone walks by your screen while you're compiling anything, it's going to look like The Matrix, especially if you use a dark terminal color scheme :)
123.
by pgbovine 13y ago
put them in situation where renaming files won't cut it completely agreed, but often the first example you show people needs to be simple enough to grok, not to mention to type. even showing a simple git example takes about an hour
124.
by pgbovine 13y ago
(i should add that as a parenthetical in the article) this is exactly what a newbie would see if they opened up a built-in text editor on, say, their mac. something similar would happen for windows. (same goes for lack of fancy terminal cus
125.
by pgbovine 13y ago
No offices -- just open spaces. not true; plenty of offices around perimeters. Too academic (from Stanford days?) for my tastes. also untrue; googlers are mostly evaluated on quantifiable impact on products, not by their academic resear
126.
by pgbovine 13y ago
these essays are amazing ... also great for learning about CS systems in general. if you can get all the jokes, then you're well on your way to an applied CS degree!
127.
by pgbovine 13y ago
you mean if you end up cashing out and then unicorning afterward? i can't imagine running a startup being a unicorn job, unless you love doing all sorts of things that aren't remotely related to your side project.
128.
by pgbovine 13y ago
hmmm if you love library-building, then you probably won't like wrangling clients, chasing them down for payments, finding your next clients, etc. ... not to mention what happens when clients want you to customize your library in some
129.
by pgbovine 13y ago
totally! if you love building businesses, managing organizations and logistics, and figuring out monetization and growth, then starting a company might be your unicorn job.
130.
by pgbovine 13y ago
I think this is why some people go into Finance. Spend 10 years in some miserable high stress job, but hopefully gather enough wealth to retire in your early 30s and work on whatever you want. Some of my college classmates went down this
131.
by pgbovine 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Rossum "He was employed by Google from 2005 until December 7th 2012, where he spent half his time developing the Python language."
132.
by pgbovine 13y ago
yep there was an epic debate about "objects-first" vs. "objects-late" CS1 curricula last decade. the objects-first folks seemed to have lost, though. here's a paper: http://homes.cs.washington.edu/~r
133.
by pgbovine 13y ago
if you have a Ph.D. in science/engineering and want to get a job related to your speciality, then yes, that's the case. also, it's a no-brainer since there are very few jobs (in either industry or academia) where you can be p
134.
by pgbovine 13y ago
thanks ... fixed! ha i wish my antiquated website could take pull requests
135.
by pgbovine 13y ago
whoa thanks! then you probably know that i've thought a lot about this decision to dive back in :)
136.
by pgbovine 13y ago
s/professor/postdoc/g (also, my first job out of grad school was in industry and had nothing to do with my Ph.D. work)
137.
by pgbovine 13y ago
what kind of research are you interested in for Ph.D.? i can't seem to find your academic info from your HN profile. email me if you want to chat more.
138.
by pgbovine 13y ago
"I mean that the person who would otherwise have done the PhD is probably a self-starter who would've done other equally-valuable things in the meantime." -good point! i agree with that a lot. i see what you mean now.
139.
by pgbovine 13y ago
i will vehemently argue that a Ph.D. in CS is one of the best ways that a young hacker can spend his/her 20s, regardless of which career they end up pursuing in the future. pursuing a Ph.D. + interning at several companies during summe
140.
by pgbovine 13y ago
+1000, and latching on to this top comment for more visibility ... also check out jeff's related post on bringing startup culture to academic research! http://jeffhuang.com/adopting_the_startup_culture_for_resear...
141.
by pgbovine 13y ago
ha, i've been giving talks on this very subject ;) http://vimeo.com/73178238 btw i'm a big fan of jeff's approach and hope it works out well.
142.
by pgbovine 13y ago
remote software development is very challenging, and when it works well, it's due to super-clear specs and project management. by its very nature, research isn't as amenable to crystal-clear specs.
143.
by pgbovine 13y ago
remote Ph.D. is a bad idea; the Ph.D. experience is isolating enough as-is, and pushing it remotely will exacerbate those problems. plus, innovation often happens in serendipitous in-person encounters in the hallway, lounge, and lab with st
144.
by pgbovine 13y ago
wow that's a great summary of key points :) and thanks for mentioning that my memoir has a more objective tone than the other student's rant. i tried hard to present both the good and bad sides of academia, as viewed through the l
145.
by pgbovine 13y ago
obligatory norvig: http://norvig.com/21-days.html but all snark aside, good work so far! like the concept.
146.
by pgbovine 13y ago
so would I!
147.
by pgbovine 13y ago
Since people often ask me this question, here is why I personally pursued a Ph.D. in CS: http://pgbovine.net/why-pursue-PhD.htm YMMV, though.
148.
by pgbovine 14y ago
extra bright colors; maybe some blink tags too.
149.
Drew Houston will be the youngest ever MIT commencement speaker(tech.mit.edu)
1 points by pgbovine 14y ago|0 comments
150.
by pgbovine 14y ago
i will +1 his love for the 11" MacBook Air ... people are always skeptical that i can do pretty much all of my work on it (yes, even some coding), but after almost two years, i still haven't found its small size to be too limiting.

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