HN user

hungrygs

186 karma
Posts4
Comments22
View on HN

or claimed to already know how to program.

This was the key fact. They knew how to program Pascal from Computer Science AP and got 5's on the AP exams and came into UT Austin with abundant confidence but when presented with hardcore mathematical logic data structures and algorithm analysis in functional programming starting week 1 of college they got the rug pulled out from the under them. Of course, this was real computer science, not "infantile" imperative/OOP programming.

Ham "Haskell" Richardson was a total fanboy of Dijkstra!

I will note that the current 1st UTCS course is a serious joke - CS312 was a remedial course, non-counting for major, before 2014, called CS 305J. It's an embarrassment compared to Berkeley's CS61A.

Dijkstra had a lot of influence for some years on the UTCS undergraduate program, whose first undergraduate course for much of the 1990s was taught in Haskell and was a brutal weed out, at ~70% attrition for the first year courses.

However, by 2001, the failure rate was so high that the department moved to Java, much to Dijkstra's chagrin: https://chrisdone.com/posts/dijkstra-haskell-java/

The UTCS undergrad program has been "nerfed" twice since the 1990s - in 2001 and in in 2014. Various political interests during the first tech bubble - to produce more graduates - and later, to have more under-represented minorities, have dramatically reduced what Dijkstra pushed for.

Just anecdotal, but my life observation of DK is often highly intelligent and competent people in a particular field who then generalize that to pontificate and proclaim, directly or indirectly, superior understanding to certified domain experts (e.g., have directly related advanced degree(s), work in the field for decades.) It thus seems more or as much a psychological effect - in short, people with a personality type of superiority and know-it-all, yet have never done the deep and hard work to gain or demonstrate any competency in said areas. A common side observation is of course unfounded conspiracy theories, that the derided experts have sinister intentions.

It's baffled me for years that Russia is making such an obvious geopolitical mistake by not becoming an EU style country aligned in that direction. Culturally, Russia and China are dramatically different and Russia is going to end up as a glorified North Korea under its current leadership. Putin and his cronies just want to loot all that they can while they can.

It's true that condos as a class don't appreciate but if you buy one in the right gentrifying area they can be a fantastic deal. Some condos in Austin Texas have increased 400% in price in the past 5-6 years. Particularly in zips 78741 and 78704.

If Vancouver overall is as dense as SF then 4 plexes won't matter much. But there are many other cities - even LA - where I would think it would. Yet LA has vast amount of low rise commercial on 4 lane streets with bus lines that could support widespread 1+5 podium style designed buildings.

Will this type of move inevitably trickle down to the best public CS undergrad programs? Berkeley and UCLA CS are almost entirely Asian (east and south) with a sprinkling of mostly Jewish Americans who fill the "white" category. That reflects in part California's demographics but even less heavy Asian American places like UT Austin, UW Seattle, and UIUC are 50%+ Asian in undergrad CS.

I'm quite sure Taiwan will last longer than the CCP in Beijing. The end game is PRC becomes democratic eventually and then Taiwan can "unify" - meaning, China becomes a federal republic with Taiwan as one of the states/provinces. People thought the Soviet Union would last forever and then, almost overnight, it was gone.

Fighting gentrification is stupid. Cities with growing populations need new housing supply and the market will put resources (to build) where it meets consumer demand. Unjustifiable barriers to new housing supply will only make prices go up even faster, and for crappier quality housing, too.

That's strange that new development wouldn't have commercial ground floor space, even more so if the torn down building had it. Everywhere in the USA that has urban gentrification strongly encourages retail on the first floor and apartments/condos on top. It's a huge attraction to residents above as well. Worse case, cities could mandate it.

The general direction of the Trump plan regarding H-1b is the way to go. The lottery needs to be replaced with a demand system where the highest salaries get slots. A floor of $100,000/yr should exist and adjust for inflation. Next, generously expand the green card fast track, as this category of employee, as an immigrant, is a free agent to move among companies or to start their own business.

To date, as we all know, the H-1b system has primarily been used to arbitrage for lower wage by Indian companies and mostly non-tech big corporates, where they bring in $60k/yr "systems analysts" who are in fact doing $100,000+/yr software engineering roles.

You call tell how much the H-1B system is being gamed by the Indian in-source companies. They basically never hire software engineers but only "computer programmers" and the ubiquitous "analyst."

Look at this (Salaries in New Jersey? $45,000 for systems analysts?) http://www.h1bme.com/?employer=COGNIZANT+TECHNOLOGY+SOLUTION...

Systems Architects $73k and "programmers" $63k. Not a single software engineer or developer! http://www.h1bme.com/?employer=TATA+CONSULTANCY+SERVICES+LIM...