missing-semester VS CS50x-2021

> The realization came a few weeks ago when someone shared The Missing Semester of Comp Sci on HN. It’s full of basic things you’d expect any programmer to somehow magically know … but they don’t learn this anymore. https://missing.csail.mit.edu/

I do feel somewhat jealous though that these resources are now available for students to learn in a structured, borderline spoon-fed way when this stuff took me a number of years and hacking around to build up and gain muscle memory over. Still, I think the knowledge you struggle to learn yourself sticks around a lot longer than knowledge that was fed to you from school. :shrug: I could see it either way.

> "Why does it have to be so complicated? I just want to install a program"

> "Why would you do that in the command line? It's way easier using $Program"

A concerning observation that’s slowly dawning on me is that more and more programmers don’t know how computers work. They can write code, build software, and do lots of useful things. But they have no idea how computers work. They’re more akin to lusers as we used to call them than they are to hackers of old.

Fantastic at their specialty and the tools they use. But move a button to an unfamiliar place or throw them into a new (but fundamentally same) environment and they’re lost.

The realization came a few weeks ago when someone shared The Missing Semester of Comp Sci on HN. It’s full of basic things you’d expect any programmer to somehow magically know … but they don’t learn this anymore. https://missing.csail.mit.edu/

Seeing that link shared connected the dots in my mind. I’ve been wondering for months ”Why does everyone at work have so many random local environment issues all the time?” … it’s been working fine for me for years. Same code and hardware. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is a webpage I refer people often to: https://missing.csail.mit.edu/

This from MIT is called "The missing semester of your CS education" and provides some practical hands on skills like Git https://missing.csail.mit.edu/

The Missing Semester: Made to address shortcomings in software engineers and teacher Vim.

Maybe CS50 is a good resource. Course mateials for 2021 are available here: https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2021/

He advised me that to have a better broad understanding of everything about coding today, https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2021/

I recently completed CS50x as an introduction to programming. I found this course to offer fundamentals, exposure to multiple languages, and a solid foundation for learning how to be a better programmer. I'd recommend checking it out. If you don't have time for extra coursework, at least watch the lectures and decide if it's something worth pursuing.

I strongly recommend to take the CS50 class first (its on youtube and edx): https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2021/

• https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2021/ is perhaps the best course out there fore core programming skills. It’s very practical, high quality and it focuses down on proper core principles rather than language features. It starts at the very foundations and goes up to a fairly advanced level. I used it when I started out and really recommend it.

If you have no background in programming you might want to start with their standard CS50x class which is an intro to programming: https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2021/