There was an interesting article posted few weeks ago claiming that We're Teaching Coding All Wrong by Nathan Esquenazi. As I see it, this article contains some good advice along with some bad advice. So I'm going to explore what I agree with and what I disagree with. Individual Success Valued Over Team Victories The … Continue reading Are We Teaching Code All Wrong? →

How many retirees are paying back student loans? Maybe you would find it surprising that Americans over 60 years of age are the fastest growing group of college loan debtors. This is according to a recent article in the New York Times. More than 2.8 million Americans over 60 are contending with student debt, a … Continue reading Retired with Student Loans →

Programming without math may seem to be a crazy idea, but according to a recent study math ability is not a strong predictor of how quickly an individual can learn how to program. The study was published online in Scientific Reports on March 2nd. While the study was small (limited to 3 dozen individuals) the … Continue reading Programming Without Math →

University of Illinois is my alma mater. That's where I studied computer science. While there were many classes I enjoyed and added value to my education, there were also many classes that added no value in my ability to earn a living in the industry. A recent conversation got me thinking about if anything had … Continue reading Fluff at University of Illinois →

Last night, I played in a recreation hockey league. It's otherwise known as a beer league. Fortunately, they limit participation to those who are 40 years and older, so that saves my legs from trying to keep up with guys in their 20's. But in any event, while rehydrating with ethanol and feeling sorry for … Continue reading A Unique Situation →

Musk has taken to Twitter to recruit for Tesla's AI team. And as this article captures, he cares about one thing, ability. He does not care about qualifications. He even goes so far to say that he doesn't care if a candidate has graduated high school. Musk is known for taking stands that are contrary … Continue reading Elon Musk Doesn’t Care If You Have a Degree →

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about the state of Computer Science education and how lacking I've found it. I studied CS at a top 5 national college, and I vividly remember the challenges and frustrations that I experienced. We've also been hiring entry level engineers and I've noticed that so many recent graduates come … Continue reading Throw Away Code →