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Summer Reading and Startup Program 150

Posted by Zonk from the better-than-a-book-report dept.
putko writes "Paul Graham, lisp hacker and creator of the company that became Yahoo! Store has an essay on what to do while in college. Previously, he's covered what high school students should do. He's also begun a summer startup program, which invites people with good ideas to try out for some startup capital. The deadline is March 26th." From the page: "We're going to call this project the Summer Founders Program, and it preserves many of the features of a conventional summer job. You have to move here (Cambridge) for the summer, as with a regular summer job. We give you enough money to live on for a summer, as with a regular summer job. You get to work on real problems, as you would in a good summer job. But instead of working for an existing company, you'll be working for your own; instead showing up at some office building at 9 AM, you can work when and where you like; and instead of salary, the money you get will be seed funding."
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Summer Reading and Startup Program

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  • Search for "beer" in document:
    0 Results.

    • Verrrry interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @07:16PM (#11980716) Homepage
      Heck, let's get even more general. I searched for "fun" and got the following results:

      When I was an undergrad there weren't enough cycles around to make graphics interesting, but it's hard to imagine anything more fun to work on now.

      There's a fundamental problem in "computer science"...

      When Harvard kicks undergrads out for a year, they have to get jobs. The idea is to show them how awful the real world is, so they'll understand how lucky they are to be in college. This plan backfired with the guy who came to work for us, because he had more fun than he'd had in school, and made more that year from stock options than any of his professors did in salary.

      It's interesting, isn't it, what you can quickly conclude if you just search for the right terms. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a kegger to attend.

  • Nothing Inspires Like Actual Experience (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Friday March 18, 2005 @07:02PM (#11980624) Homepage Journal
    What to do first summer in college? Work. Work somewhere, even if you have to volunteer, but work! If you're observant enough you find a need, a niche, an opportunity for something somewhere. That's your launchpad.

    Me? I'm an old cuss working in a small shop, converting legacy stuff with new tools. I'll save them a bundle. I may release some of my code open source, just so others can benefit. There's so many needs around me, it's more than I can keep up with. Occasionally I come across something that'd be great beyond these four walls. If only I could take a break and expand upon it...

  • eBay already capitalized off my idea!

    rm -rf /.

  • That's really sweet (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    On the application form you need to supply your name, e-mail address, and -- you bet -- slashdot id.

  • Where was this program when I was in college? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by teutonic_leech ( 596265 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @07:10PM (#11980678)
    The Summers Program ounds like a wonderful opportunity to me. Anyone with an ingenious nature should will give their right arm to get into this one. This is what young fledgling entrepreneurs need - an environment where they can explore their ideas, make mistakes, learn from others, and maybe produce a protoype of their invention/ideas. Damn, I wished I was back in college again - so many opportunities - so little time...
    • The Summers Program ounds like a wonderful opportunity to me. Anyone with an ingenious nature should will give their right arm to get into this one.

      Sounds ideal, but is it practical? Without having an actual idea to start with, some experience in the field the product would be employed in, it's just an exercise.

  • As a high school student... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 18, 2005 @07:13PM (#11980696)
    ...I would not want to do this.

    Why? When I'm in college, there are two things I wish to do:
    1. Educate myself. Not for the sake of getting a job, but for actual education.
    2. Relax. Because it'll be the last chance I get before I become a wage slave.

    Why should I start working a 'real' job early? I'd rather flip burgers through college. No, I'm not monied, far from it. But I really don't want to 'grow up' early. I'd rather work menial, temp jobs to pay my way through, rather than do this 'summer program' and get seed funding for a future venture. Why? Because that would involve an immediate transition from student to wage slave. And I don't wish to go through that transition too early.
    • I respect your desire to 'grow up' early -- to each his own.

      However, some of us would *love* to do something like this summer founders program. To me, it was the most exciting thing I've read in a long time. It seemed too good to be true, until I remembered it was Paul Graham writing it.

      Now I have to find 2-3 friends who feel the same way! Anyone in Austin (TX) feel the same? contact me, quickly, there's only 1 week left.

    • Re:As a high school student... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bleckywelcky ( 518520 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @09:06PM (#11981425)
      I think the point of this program is to inspire you NOT to become a wage slave. If you can work a job and spend your spare time venturing off into new business or investing ideas, you can become independently wealthy by age 30. And then you can do whatever you feel like doing, while still being young enough to enjoy it.
    • ...I would not want to do this. ... Why? Because that would involve an immediate transition from student to wage slave. And I don't wish to go through that transition too early.

      But this program is not for "wage slaves," it's for those people who will go on to hire wage slaves to do their work for them while they are out relaxing by the pool.

    • 2. Relax. Because it'll be the last chance I get before I become a wage slave.

      As a computer engineering student, I just thought I would let you know that chances are you wont have much time to "relax" in college.

      Although that may be different for those in Computer Science. If I took Comp. Sci instead of Comp. Eng, I would be coasting through without a care in the world, along with every other script kiddy.

      Seriously though, I barely have time to breath. I am my seccond year in and stressed like
    • Hehe, I wish it would work that way for me.

      I'm tutoring Algebra as a part time job in addition to going to school. While I'd like to just focus on schooling and all that; I figure the more I put my time into productive things, the better. And if it so happens that that job I work at fits in with my schooling, all the better.

      I keep hearing all these old people warning me about kids who keep going to school who "are only book smart" and who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag. I've found after

  • Simply Awesome. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by firew0lfz ( 690262 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @07:14PM (#11980700)
    I didn't read the full article, but from a quick glance I'd love to participate in a program like this. Too bad I live in Oklahoma.

    It's spring break right now over here and I'm the typical freshman college student still trying to figure out what the hell I wanna do with my life. Gas prices are at killer levels right now, and most of my friends had already left for various locations for vacation; so I spent most of spring break in the house.

    I spent all of spring break pondering the 3x+1 problem (do a search of www.mathforge.net on it) and I think I've found what I want to do. Yes, I'm not all that clever (122 on an IQ test online and a 26 on the ACT; that and the highest math I've taken up to this semster is Trig) but simply working on such problems and forcing your mind to *think* - rather than being taught in school the proper 'rules' of math; is something I've never really done. (Also read up on Feynman and what he had to say about things like that.) I didn't bother reading all the background information on it either (since, well, to be honest, I didn't get all the fancy explanations that I've read online) but working on such problems is a feeling I've not experienced since I was very young. Somewhere in the process of being forced to grow up I lost that.

    This is awesome that this program is rewarding folks for *thinking* and *working* rather than just being able to read a book and take a test. Three cheers for this. I really love the last line of the article as well:

    "So the best thing you can do in college, whether you want to get into grad school or just be good at hacking, is figure out what you truly like. It's hard to trick professors into letting you into grad school, and impossible to trick problems into letting you solve them. College is where faking stops working. From this point, unless you want to go work for a big company, which is like reverting to high school, the only way forward is through doing what you love."

    • 122 on an IQ test online ...

      Try this IQ test [highiqsociety.org]

      • I'm guessing you just linked to it to provide another test, but that site kinda made me laugh.

        If you just ignore the condescending and arrogant tone of the "organization," you start to see some sort of scam in the making. I'd like to believe that the test is truly accurate, but when it's set up so that they'd actually want people to score high on it to join their organization (for the low, low price of $60), you start to wonder.

        I guess that's the third online IQ test I've taken, and it was also the high

    • College is where faking stops working

      Huh. At my college (admittedly not the best) I think most of fellow students found that faking was working. Turns out, that was adequate peparation for most of them for the corporate life.

  • Not correct about the Mathematics (Score:3, Insightful)

    by d2_m_viant ( 811261 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @07:15PM (#11980708)
    He's correct almost everything except the part about taking mathematics in college. If anyone is considering a degree in CS, be prepared to be inundated with courses involving Math. When he says "I don't think you need much more than high school math plus a few concepts from the theory of computation." -- it's misleading.

    I go to a university in Portland, OR [up.edu] and I'm currently persuing a BS in Computer Science, and I can honestly say that you will be taking courses up through (and past) Linear Algebra, Vector Calculus, and Applied Statistics. I wouldn't say these are courses that require just "a few concepts" beyond high school mathematics, I think it's more accurate to recognize that the foundation of Computer Science in based upon mathematics.

    • Re:Not correct about the Mathematics (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You missed his point. He's merely saying that most math subjects in universities aren't needed in CS subjects. Which CS subject have you used calculus, linear algebra or vector calculus in? Operating systems? Design and analysis of algorithms? Theory of programming languages?
      • I used linear algebra in robotics and AI, as well as in spectral analysis of graphs. There's a whole world of math beyond that, in discrete math, which /is/ quite a bit more related to CS. Combinatorics overlaps quite a bit with graph theory, which is a bit part of CS theory, and the basis for a large number of practical algorithms. Algebra/number theory is quite useful to me as a cryptographer, though it might not be completely useful to everyone.

        It's really hard to go wrong taking too much math, and very
        • Mathematical science must be considered desirable in itself, though not with reference to the needs of daily life. If it is necessary to refer the benefit arising from it to something else, we must connect that benefit with intellectual knowledge, to which it leads the way and is a propaedeutic, clearing the eye of the soul and taking away the impediments which the senses place in the way of the knowledge of universals.

          -Proclus
      • I'm thinking that it depends heavily on the type of things you are doing in CS. Image processing and transformation is one thing that I know uses tons of linear equations. (think photoshop filters)
      • Rarely is there a Computer Science graduate student who didn't wish he or she had more mathematical background. Now, if you're just going to be a "hacker" ala Graham, I admit more math is probably not necessary.
        • Dead on. As others have mentioned, there are tons of uses for math in CS (AI, robotics, graphics, etc.). I just wanted to add that to your point about being a "hacker" means that more math is probably not necessary. But really, if someone is going to just be a hacker and nothing more, he shouldn't be in computer science in the first place.

    • Re:Not correct about the Mathematics (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Andrew Cady ( 115471 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:04PM (#11982058)
      You won't use any of that in programming (he was talking about hacking, not CS degree reqs), and anyways that's all very basic, math-for-engineers stuff.
      • Right. There's a difference between hacking and CS. Well, its the same field, but hacking doesn't really require all those maths most people wind up taking in a CS degree.

        I've got a friend who's a CS major (I thought about, then decided I abhor computers and made my major Physics) and he was amazed at how much math he had to take - more than he realized. Something I suspect alot of incoming CS majors don't realize.

        As Edsger Dijkstra put it, "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is ab
        • There's a difference between hacking and CS.
          I don't know about that. It's more of a difference between CS curriculum (plus liberal arts curriculum) and CS. Linear Algebra &c are beaurocratically mandated but not genuinely relevant to either.
      • Ever seen jwz 's xscreensaver hacks? I assume it would have required lots and lots of Maths, It is not true that hackers do not require maths.
  • I wonder if he means Cambridge, Massachussetts or Cambridge, England. Because I'd wager that most slashdotters are significantly closer to one than to the other.

    • MA - US (Score:4, Funny)

      by francisew ( 611090 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @07:39PM (#11980871) Homepage

      Seeing as they started their comapany in the Cambridge, Ma area, they live in the same area, and the foreward of Paul's books mention that area, I think it's a safe bet that they mean England.

      :p

    • Re:Which Cambridge? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If you're in Cambridge, UK - there's a summer school here as well. Check out http://www.cfel-summerschool.com/

      As someone who has actually attended it a couple of years ago, I would say it is guaranteed to be of value to anyone considering starting their own business and raising VC funding.

  • Math (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I found it odd that Paul Grahan considers that

    In fact, the amount of math you need as a CS major is a lot less than most university departments like to admit. I don't think you need much more than high school math plus a few concepts from the theory of computation.

    I can hardly think of any CS field where high-school math is enough for doing anything serious. The fields where more math is required are too many to list: starting with graphics (analytical geometry), algorithms (obvious), networks (statisti

  • He is wrong about databases... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by barfy ( 256323 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @07:26PM (#11980780)
    And it is also why it is difficult to find top-class databases.

    In general he is right. The fun *is* in the hard problems. The hard problems in databases are scaling (speed and size), robustness (ability to recover from error), and security (prevention of unathorized viewing or changing). These are truly hard problems. Often they are solved by doing stuff around the operating system rather than with the operating system.

    Actually writing some accounting package or some other database app... That, I agree, will cause you to want to poke your eyes out with a stick.
    • He IS wrong about databases. "Flat files" are "flat wrong" for an Application Service Provider model. I don't care that FreeBSD doesn't lose your files -- if they're in a half-correct state, your customer is not going to have the experience you want them to have.

      We've probably all heard of ACID a million times. Atomic, Consistent, Isolated, Durable. You can do a lot with flat files. Storing them individually, you can isolate errors to one customer's experience. But, you cannot ensure that if your pro
      • You can still make all changes atomic with flat files (very easily). If your state per user is under a few kilobytes it's perfectly reasonable (and does not violate ACID) to use a flat file for each user's state. And if it's bigger you can still isolate with multiple files, which you can change multiply in atoms with a simple journal. This is how databases work when they use flat files for storage.
      • Why can't you do ACID with flat files?

        And the point is that it obviously worked. Well.
    • "if you ever suffer from insomnia, try reading the technical literature about databases"

      Having read a fair amount, he's far from wrong on this point. :)
    • i have to strongly agree. i've been doing languages and operating systems, networks, graphics, essentially everything, for a long time now. except for databases.
      i've always had scorn for databases. until i needed one that was fault tolerant and scaled and had certain distribution properties. and now i'm several months in, and its by far the most interesting and difficult distributed systems problem i've ever looked at. i have alot of catching up to do with the state of the art. and i'm regretting not having
    • The hard problems in databases are scaling (speed and size), robustness (ability to recover from error), and security (prevention of unathorized viewing or changing).

      Not really. These problems have been solved. Relational Algebra and transaction theory get the job done for the first two. Security really isn't gonna get much better than Kerberos.

      The "hard problems" as you describe are all just heuristics. They aren't fundamental problems, is optimizing for the common case.

      Personally, I find heuristic
      • I took a graduate-level databases class last spring. One of the things the professor said was that "it takes a PhD to properly tune a database". She was right. What makes databases act like they do is not trivial.

        When you throw distribution into the mix, they're even more complex. What the `right' thing is to do when network latency comes into the picture is quite an interesting problem. Without throwing away ACID properties, there are quite a few possibilities.

        Lea
    • The fun *is* in the hard problems. The hard problems in databases are scaling (speed and size), robustness (ability to recover from error), and security (prevention of unathorized viewing or changing). These are truly hard problems.

      He's absolutely right, and it's for all fields of science, not just for comp sci databass.

      In otherwords, the non-hard problems have all been solved already, and the cutting edge research is always 'hard'. In physics, for example, there are occasional students that want to w

  • Do not work.

    Do something you enjoy, anything you enjoy. Play music, draw, hike, anything but "work" (if you happen to land one of those magic jobs where the work is your fun, continue to do that and consider going to school part time - it is a rare thing). Of course there is the "well, I need money for when I return to school" dilemma- take out more loans, build some credit debt do whatever it takes to enjoy life and your limited time

    After college, it is likely that one will work [struggle] until [near]
    • I would disagree with this advice, I don't think you can fully appreciate a pocket of empty time until you have worked your ass off or been really busy trying to accomplish something (work, family, charity, etc) for a long time, which excludes high school students.

      I had a couple of those summers off and blew them because I had no concept of the value of having literally months to do whatever I wanted.

      I think you're imposing the worldview of a wants-to-retire work-a-day guy (I'm one of them too) person onto

      • I don't know about anyone else, and it could just be cos I go to a rather high-pressure university [cam.ac.uk], but I'm completely drained by the end of term. I'm about to hit 4 or so weeks of holiday and will need every last one for a) rest and recuperation, b) catching up on work and c) getting ready for the next term's worth of stress in the form of exam season.

        I get your point, and I think it's an interesting one. But be careful about encouraging students to move quickly into the world of work for the sake of it
    • I'm sorry, but that's the worst advice I've ever heard. It's possible to work and still enjoy yourself. I think if you do not work in your field you will be at a serious disadvantage when it comes to finding a job. Let me rephrase that. If you DO work during college, you will be at a significant advantage, simply because most people do not work during school (fast food does not count for job experience, unless you're going to McDonald's University). Find something you enjoy doing, get good at it, get paid f
      • There are more important things in life than work and work experience, and taking a summer off while your financial obligations are lower (then if you were carrying a family) is a good choice for the break, relaxation, and fun you will have.



        With expenses covered, it IS good advice.

        • I didn't say work until you drop. It's about balance. It seems for me that my mind and ability to think in class dulls the more time I spend away from it or work. It's hard to keep your mind sharp enough for school unless you're doing something to exercise it.
    • I'm going to assume the concept of "living life" doesn't appeal to much of the crowd here, but this is the probably the best piece of advice anyone will read in this thread, independent of whether they think it has merit or not.
  • There are only two kinds of math books: those you can't read past the first page, and those you can't read past the first line..

    FTA: One of the most valuable things you could do in college would be to learn what math is really about. This may not be easy, because a lot of good mathematicians are bad teachers. And while there are many popular books on math, few seem good.

    There are lots of good math books. Graham's just being lazy. Further, lots of good mathematicians are great teachers.

    While I've
    • Reminds me of my favorite math prof in college. When he came into the country, he had two employment options. One was with NASA (his latest book that I know of was concerning the orbits of artificial satelites). The other was at my university.

      He likes to teach. Basically it gives him more of a sense of accomplishment than what he would have been doing with nasa. Go figure.

      Personally, I'm glad he made the choice that he did. I miss the demented leprechan...
  • I enjoyed the most recent 'what to do in college' essay on PG's site. But considerably less so than I did his 'what to do in high school' essay.

    Insofar as Paul's advice is geared toward the general student and not just the "I want to be a God programmer-- full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes" student, I'd have to say it's a bit lacking and a bit limiting, even despite the great advice that it does give. He suggests majoring in something like math, skipping psychology, philosophy, the study of other languages, etc etc etc and concentrating on "hard problems". Implicit in this is
    1. That the social sciences have no "hard problems";
    2. That the sum total of one's worth as a thinker is held in their ability to solve a branch of "hard problems";
    3. That college is fundamentally about learning how to solve "hard problems".

    If you want to have a balanced, open-minded outlook on life, you have to reject 1 and 2. If you want to have a realistic chance at being happy in life, you have to reject 3.

    My advice to the aspiring programming god in undergrad is to heed Paul's advice up to a point, but also to remember three things:

    1. Just because 95% of people in social sciences aren't as smart as you are, that doesn't mean the social sciences themselves aren't worthwhile. Dig a little. Branch out. You'll be better for it.

    2. Just as, or more important, than going to college to learn to program, job skills, how to solve "hard problems", or however you want to put it, is that college is the greatest, most well-timed, and most forgiving classroom where you learn how to life your life. Don't forget that or take it for granted. Get out and have some fun and meet some people.

    3. Anyone who's really damn good at programming is abnormal. This isn't a valuative statement; you've got some genes in you that are simply not found in a similar configuration in the vast majority of the population. Now, this is going to involve some tradeoffs. Learn to accomodate them and/or live with them, because you're stuck with the bad along with the good. Be OK with that.

    And good luck.
    Mike

  • Lisp conspiracy (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @07:44PM (#11980906) Journal
    Man, he'll do anything to force people to use Lisp :-)

  • To do while in college: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @07:44PM (#11980908) Homepage Journal
    College chicks.

  • I feel sorry for Paul Graham (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Timbotronic ( 717458 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @08:42PM (#11981286)
    His devotion to work above everything else borders on an obsessive/compulsive disorder. In How to Start a Startup [paulgraham.com] he documents how he "used to work till 2:00 or 3:00 AM every night, seven days a week". And the there's this:

    "During this time you'll do little but work, because when you're not working, your competitors will be. My only leisure activities were running, which I needed to do to keep working anyway, and about fifteen minutes of reading a night. I had a girlfriend for a total of two months during that three year period. Every couple weeks I would take a few hours off to visit a used bookshop or go to a friend's house for dinner. I went to visit my family twice. Otherwise I just worked"

    All this for what? The Yahoo fucking store? Look, it's his life and his choice as to how he wants to live it. But I simply don't believe you have to have no life in order to succeed. Look at Richard Branson. He works hard sure, but he hasn't forgotten to have fun along the way.

    It's been over 10 years since I was at college and I certainly don't regret that I slacked off and partied a lot of the time. There's a certain freedom at that age that's hard to come by once you get older. You can work hard at any age. Live a little.

    • "All this for what? The Yahoo fucking store?"

      I would guess it was "all this" so he can now do whatever he wants to do, since he's independently wealthy. Some people aspire to being able to do what they want all the time. Some don't, apparently.
    • Yeah, and as a result, he doesn't have to work again in his life. And I'm sure the work he was doing was extremely enjoyable to him.

      What's wrong with that?

    • You're wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ghostunit ( 868434 )
      He overworked himself yes, but now he's wealthy and respected enough to live without the burden of money over him, forcing him to work on stuff he doesn't want. As he said, it's like cramming 40 years of work life into 4 so you can do whatever you want in the other 36. Besides, you learn much more from the experience than from just working for someone else's company. More importantly, he is a great hacker, so it's in his nature to take challenges.
      • It sounds like Paul Graham himself has done really well for himself with the cram 40 into 4 method. However, for every person who does as well as him by taking that path, there have to be hundreds or thousands of burned-out workaholics in stressful, financially unstable work situations. If you're the type of person to do that sort of thing anyways, you might as well. I don't think it makes sense though to encourage others to do that.
    • Don't feel sorry for Paul Graham. He chose his path and he enjoys it. You chose a different path and are happy with your choice. Good for both you. I don't feel sorry for either of you.
    • I don't, and I should know. It was a conscious decision to get the money problem out of the way quickly so I could work on other stuff. Or hang out in Caneel Bay...

      If you spread three years of 112-hour weeks over a normal working life, it works out to 7.5 hours a week. Surely that is pretty efficient.

      I don't think Branson has more fun than me. I think he just has a PR agency making sure everyone knows about it when he does.

      • I'd have to agree.

        I met Branson 2 weeks ago. He happened to be carrying a model past me (after having just rappelled from the ceiling of a mall in Montreal while launching his new cell phone line here). He didn't seem that interesting, but who knows, right?

        I'm taking Paul's challenge pretty seriously. I appreciated the 'how to start a startup' essay quite a bit, and since I read it last week, I also read the associated book.

        I've put together a team of friends who are very capable, and organized them t

    • Been there, done that. (Multiple years, 12x7, goldquest.) It is way too much fun to be called work. Granted, Paul did make it sound like work, but... what is the noun for "enervating"? I am just surprised he went to bed so early (2-3am) and had the discipline to exercise regularly.

  • summers? (Score:3, Informative)

    by wolfgang_spangler ( 40539 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @08:48PM (#11981310)
    continue your classes in the summer. Do not take your summers off. Summers are a great time to take your useless classes, like gender or sensitivity training that colleges seem intent on stuffing into you nowadays. Do not do the minimum of math classes, take more. Take more physics. When not at school, go to the freaking gym and get some exercise.

    Want to get/keep a good job? Learn about digital signal processing.
    • continue your classes in the summer. Do not take your summers off.

      If science is your thing, then try your damndest to get a research job. Do something to get your hands 'wet', where you can learn what real scientists do day in and out.

      I was able to get my job after undergrad (I was a physics major) because I worked 2 years writing software and building electronic systems for a physics department, and landed a sweet job at an MIT lab. Without the undergrad job I never would have accumulated the experi

    • Some of the best classes are only held in summer! Everyone is more relaxed. Auditors never seem to watch the classes, so the professors teach you the interesting stuff. (this can be good or bad, depending on how interesting relates to the real world) Take summer classes. If you need to take time off to work, take a differrent time. Or do what I did and only take 12 credits so you have time to work. But take the summer classes, they are the best.

  • I'm looking for a few teammates; I proposed everyone needing a team to just email me (borkut at gmail) and we'll get a mailing list going. Multiple teams will probably be spawned.

    I'm in the bay area myself, and have a few ideas...
  • i found the speech that he wrote for high school students to be very interesting, and actually quite motivating (though that wasn't the main purpose). It seemed that this would be a good place for me to ask a few questions too: 1. i've just started high school, and slowly i have gotten better and better at computers and now i'm very interested in programming. I have started to take a few tutorials in C++, but i'm really not sure if this is the languadge i should start in. does anyone have any suggestions as
    • If you learn the right habits and style, it won't matter what language you learn.

      But that's IF you learn the right habits and style.

      Personally, I'd recommend you start with the text "How to Design Programs." You can buy it, or you can read it for free online. It is specifically written to be usable at the high school level (though it is also used at the college level).

      See: http://www.htdp.org/

      (and the development environment for it is:)
      http://www.drscheme.org/

      After you've finished, go back and learn
      • thanks that really helps, but just to clarify this....i'm already 3 months into C++ and so i've already started to get the concepts etc... this post really helped me though. the only other question that i have is if you have any advice on things (such as problems) that i should be focusing or studying on in C++

    • You might try reading something like Eric S. Raymond's 'The art of Unix Programming' (http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/). It's pretty interesting in terms of the history of programming, but also in terms of how to do things in an interesting way.

      I'd also suggest you learn something about programming embedded hardware, microcontrollers. Parralax sells lots of little systems that allow you to interface computers with real stuff. At the very least, it's neat to blink LED's, and at the best, you learn

  • I'm graduating this year with CS degree from an Australian university [uow.edu.au]. I'm contemplating on doing grad studies in a university [unsw.edu.au] with stronger theoretical CS subjects [unsw.edu.au] afterwards to remedy my undergrad degree's deficiency in this field [uow.edu.au].

    I have been a struggling UNIX systems programmer and only recently have I realized I have not done computer architecture, complexity theory, or a good OS subject with some programming in it. My progress has generally been slow in becoming a UNIX "hacker". My advice to people

  • The article refers to Graham as a "lisp hacker". This is incorrect. The proper spelling is "Lisp hacker". Like "God", the word "Lisp" must be capitalized to show proper respect; otherwise SHRDLU may eat your firstborn child. Carry on...

  • What to REALLY do (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nate nice ( 672391 ) on Friday March 18, 2005 @11:34PM (#11982173) Journal
    You have your whole life to work and hopefully during the school year you work hard. So, when you have time off, use it. Use it to travel, sit around or read up on what interests you. Don't believe this "work-is-life" crap. You only live once and you'll have plenty of opportunity. I'm not saying be a lazy bumb but by default you are not. You already work hard and deserve some time to do as you please.

    Work on your own programs, take a break from computers all together but all in all, do what YOU want. You won't always be this (generally) young age so enjoy it while you can. You will be working and working hard the rest of your cursed life so make do now.

    I never had an internship but did work that was really cool and interesting. Why intern as a programmer when I already do tons of it? I did cool things like surveying to make ends meet in the summer, etc. Working outdoors getting a hell of a tan. Other summers I could travel some, etc.

    When graduating recently I got any interview I wanted and even had places calling me that I never applied for. (use your schools career center!)

    Now I join the working dead and don't have the time to get out and be free like I used to but at least I did and enjoyed myself.

    It's good to be ambitious but it's also a good idea to be ambitious about your time and your life. Enjoy it.

    Youth is fleeting.
  • We've seen enough of Paul Graham's essays now slashdot that we can find his site now. You don't need to post EVERY essay he writes, which is about once a week or two. He wrote the Yahoo store, he didn't create cold fusion...I will scream if I see one more article from him about what people should do to be like him, when his advice always involves using the word "hack" 50 times, and his advice is more or less irrelevant anyways. People like he and Mark Cuban got really lucky when Yahoo was handing out mad
    • I too am tired of Graham. It's bad enough that I see his tired harping in the Lisp/Scheme communities and now Slashdot. Sometimes I wonder if he is doing more of a disservice to Lisp than Erik Naggum did, but then I realize that at least Graham is an optimist (albeit, an incredibly naive one).

  • Guide to being a boring, narrow-minded person (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bskin ( 35954 ) <bentomb@gmail. c o m> on Saturday March 19, 2005 @02:04AM (#11982778)
    This guy seems to view college as a way to train yourself in a discipline, and refine your skills. I couldn't disagree more. College is when you educate yourself, and enrich yourself, and expand your horizons. It's when you meet the people who you hang out with because you actually like them, not because their locker happened to be near yours in high school. It's when you have more freedom than ever to go out and do what you want, without the obligations of life and the restrictions of high school tying you down. It's when you find out just what it is you really like doing, and who you are. I can't imagine a better way to become a boring, pitiful waste of a human being than his recommendation of 'take programming classes, do programming research projects, and then you can take a few math classes for some real variety.'

    It's not that I have anything against technical work, but really, you're gonna be doing that shit for the rest of your life if you get a job in it. Go out, find some beer, and drink it, for god's sake. Enjoy yourself. He disses social sciences because they're not logical, and subject to trends. He specifically disses on philosophy classes, because they don't teach you in a useful way. That is completely missing the point. They aren't engineering classes. You're not supposed to go through a giant textbook of information and have more thrown at you in lectures. The point of a philosophy class or a literature class is to have a subject that you can go in and discuss. Anyone who can read Nietzsche or Plato or Spinoza and not have a reaction of some sort, and a desire to tell others about it, is just a boring person.

    Don't let yourself be pigeonholed like this. Don't be the typical boring engineer who can program anything but can't get a date to save his fucking life. Chances are if you're majoring in Computer Science you're already pretty damn good with computers. Go learn about something else, while the information is easily accessible and you don't have other obligations breathing down your neck. If you think you're smart, then find a way to apply your brain to something else other than the same old shit. Try out some shit that you didn't think you'd be interested in...you might be surprised. And don't forget to have some fun, because if you follow this guy's program, you're not gonna have a lot of chance later.

    I know a lot of you think programming is really fun. But trust me, if you go out and look, you'll find other things that are more fun, too.
  • Getting hired while in college is an immense advantage:

    1. You can afford mistakes. You can switch three jobs in two years easily, and without any side effects. Playing the field is important, you don't marry the first woman you meet, right?

    2. You get among the first in your generation. This can't be overstated. Of two guys with the same age, who would you hire, one who has 2 years of experience, or one fresh out of college?

    3. It is so easy to burn time in college. Put aside those games and beer and
  • I had a fairly atypical college experience. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do, so I took a lot of random stuff. I studied math, general science, English, Philosophy, Photography, Scenecraft, TV and Radio broadcasting, Horseback Riding, Anthropology, Film, and a bunch of other things. Along the way I realized that I was actually fulfilling the goal of the University: I was giving myself a general education. Round about year 3, I realized that what I really wanted to do was hang around the radio stati

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