Philip Guo, a computer science researcher at Stanford, writes about grad school, careers, startups, geek social behavior and research tools like CDE.
HN commenters recommend his essays on geek conversational behavior and social tips, while one criticizes his emphasis on academic credentials; some link his CDE tool for dependency problems.
Maybe different lists can be prepared for different career tracks. The items enumerated in the main article obviously has a Web development feel to it. For perhaps another track, I feel that the following tasks, actually performed by someone, can be re-formed into a similar list.
* modifying the Linux implementation of strace to implement system call interposition for CDE
* modifying the official C implementation of the Python interpreter to create IncPy and SlopPy
* prototyping Python interpreter extensions by hacking on PyPy, a Python interpreter (written in Python!)
* enhancing Klee, an automated test generation and bug-finding tool based on the LLVM compiler infrastructure (written in C++)
* performing quantitative data analysis using SQLite for data storage and retrieval, Python for ad-hoc data munging, and the R project for statistics
* creating lightweight interactive data visualizations using HTML and JavaScript with jQuery
* writing lots of Python scripts to automate routine tasks and to administer computational experiments
* writing a custom memory allocator for C programs
* creating dynamic program analysis tools in C using the Valgrind code instrumentation framework
* building components of a software simulator for semiconductor tester hardware using C++ within the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE
* creating an interactive image filtering application in C++ using OpenGL and GLU for image rendering and Qt toolkit for GUI.
* building graphical applications…
I'm 22 and recently graduated with a degree in Computer Science from a second-rate Canadian University. Two years into my program I went through this same phase but my GPA has never been very strong and transferring was just not a realistic option.
Actually ~10 hours ago I was just reminiscing/reflecting on the experience and my achievements of the last 4 years. It's been 3 days after convocation and one of my good buddies is continuing on with his studies while I am diving into the wonderful world of work. I woke up and read this thread during breakfast so this a happy coincidence. I hope that someone can benefit from my experience/mistakes.
If your goal is to get into a prestigious University then I have some bad news. It is much easier, (less competitive) and cheaper (courses cost money) to get your foot in the door through high school than it is to transfer in. That being said, if you are highly determined and put in the effort you will find a way to get in. *
Yesterday evening I was fiddling around with http://www.cs.utep.edu/admissions/ . Graduate school has never been a priority for me so I would recommend doing your own research but understand that you -need- a strong GPA, especially in your CS courses. Normally I don't recommend comparing your personal development with that of your peers but it's a competitive world and a 3.3+ GPA, high GRE scores, and research experience seems to be the prerequisite for any respectable CS school these days.
As for grades I…
"... this is the author here ... ummm i'm pleasantly surprised to find my article on HN. anyways, here are two other articles that are probably better than mine on this subject ..."
I added the post for a number of reasons.
Lots of younger Nerds benefit from reading multiple viewpoints, yours, Alan Wayte ~ http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/after-high-school-guest-article.htm and pg. The situation does not seem to be improving. Can anything be done?
Popularity is now pervading the Internet and persisting on places on social networks like Facebook, where bonds formed in High School can be continued with all the same dynamics. The catch, the playground is now being defined by Nerds. Changing the real world might be hard but what about social networks modeled in software? The same "social-ineptness" that makes Nerds good at programming has so far meant replicating ineptness in software. This is a hard problem and a hint to creating tools to manage or navigate such networks might be found in the science behind "Small World Networks" ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-world_network
The blogger doth protest too much, methinks. We learn all about his academic credentials almost as soon as the blog post begins, but don't hear anything about his real-world accomplishments beyond attending great schools.
What does everyone think of the blogger's academics page?
http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/academic.htm
Disclaimer: I don't know the blogger, and as far as I know I don't know any of his professional colleagues or classmates from any era. I'm not competent to judge accomplishments in the domain of computer science, but I try to pick up nuances from English writing, just as does any other reader of English.
http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/python-teaching.htm won me over, and I now use Python exclusively in my introductory programming class. I find we cover about 3 months more material than when we did C++.
But barrydahlberg has a valid point - VB.Net is a decent language for a first course. Originally we had an alternative first programming course that used VB.Net. A lot of kids liked it better just because it was so easy to make a graphical program. We used to get a lot of kids interested in programming just by having them play with the colors of their VB.Net programs.
incidentally if anyone has a solution to this particular problem with jdee I'd love to know :)
Shameless self-promotion ... over the past year, I've been working on a project that aims to solve this dependency hell problem: http://www.stanford.edu/~pgbovine/cde.html
All you need to do is find a distro where jdee works, package it up with CDE, and then transport it to your own machine. email me if you have questions.