Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> Her recommendations are poor.

I disagree.

> You dont read books on software development methodologies when "learning to program".

Most people usually don't, perhaps (though my first college class in programming had The Mythical Man-Month as a required text, which is 100% methodological and 0% coding, and this was at a major engineering school) but especially given her discussion of the role of books vs. web resources in the current context, I don't think it's inappropriate. I personally would go to HtDP, which covered computational thinking, coding, and what I view as the right amount of methodology, and not Clean Code and Code Complete, but I don't see her recommendation of these as wrong or poor. Of course, HtDP is also a freely available web resource.

> Nor would you learn type theory.

Once you relegated the basic mechanical issued to web resources, the way she discussed, I think algorithms and data structures and type theory are probably the accessible-early deep-dive topics most useful, and the places where autodidacts focusing on obvious tutorial contents are most likely to miss out.

I also think it's clear that her presentation is of five, basically progressive, key milestone works as you progress, not five things to do all as a rsbk beginner.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: