Comment by ghaff
3 months ago
The whole container universe is pretty different even if the process/threads/etc. foundations aren't that changed. Certainly <umm> a book I wrote about the state of computing in the early 2010s--largely derived from things I had written over a few prior years--was hopelessly out of date within just a few years.
There certainly are fits and starts in the industry. I'm not sure the past 5 years or so looks THAT different from today. (Leaving aside LLMs.)
From my peripheral knowledge, MIT does try to hand-hold to some degree. Isn't the look-left and look-right, one of those people won't be here next year sort of places. But, certainly, people do get in over their head at some places. I tutored/TAd in (business) grad school and some people just didn't have the basics. I couldn't do remedial high school arithmetic from the ground up--especially for some people who weren't even willing to try seriously.
> Certainly <umm> a book I wrote about the state of computing in the early 2010s--largely derived from things I had written over a few prior years--was hopelessly out of date within just a few years.
I could see it being obsolete quickly to the extent that when someone was trying to learn devops and saw a book on the (virtual) shelf that didn't cover containers next to one that did, they'd pick the latter every time. You probably saw this in your sales tanking. But I'm not sure many of the words you actually did write became wrong or unimportant either. That's what I mean by additive. And in the context of a CS program, even if their students were trying out these algorithms with ridiculously out-of-date, turn-of-the-century tools like CVS, they'd still have something that works, as opposed to fumbling because they have no concept of how to manage their computing environment.
I didn't care about sales :-) It was free and I did a couple of book-signings at sponsored conferences that other people paid for. A lot of the historical content remained accurate but the going-forward trajectory shifted a lot.
The way DevOps evolved was sort of a mess anyway but welcome to tech.
I sort of agree more broadly but I can also see a lot of students rolling their eyes at using outdated tools which is probably less the case in other disciplines.
I could definitely see eye-rolls if students who know (of) git are being taught about CVS. But I'm not sure it matters that much. This stuff is tangential to the core course material, so a student (or small project group) can pick the tool of their choice. If they know something newer or better than suggested, great.
> Isn't the look-left and look-right, one of those people won't be here next year sort of places.
the same MIT that doesn't give out grades in the first year? (just Pass / NoPass)
the high achievers who scored solid grades to get there literally kill themselves when they pull Cs and Ds, even though it's a hard class and is sort of "look left, look right"
Not sure of your point. Pass/Fail was intended to ease freshmen in. (Most people didn't fail.)
Yes, poor grades were often a shock to people accustomed to being straight A students in high school. Though most made it through or ended up, in some cases, going elsewhere.