Ask HN: What's your favorite online course? - <AUTHOR> Better if technology related, but an open question nevertheless. <comment><USER2> I haven't taken many online courses, but here are my favorites (notice a trend):

Andrew Ng's ML Class - This makes the list because it is incredibly useful. I didn't have much background in the field and this class is a practical survey of ideas. Not a ton of depth, but exposes you to a lot of information gently.

Daphne Koller's PGM Class - This was the most rewarding. I banged my head on a lot of this material, but it was an incredible feeling when things started to click. That I was able to complete this class is a testament to Dr. Koller's excellence as an educator.

Dan Jurafsky's and Christopher Manning's NLP Class - This class was the most fun. I thought the exercises were incredibly well designed. Unlike the first two courses, the exercises were a lot more interesting. For ML and PGM, you mostly know when you have the answer and you are rewarded with 100%. NLP assignments are based on how well your system generalizes, which made me try harder to improve my systems, and helped me enjoy the course.

<comment><USER3> Koller's PGM was fun but very hard to generalize outside of the problems presented in the class. Opportunities to implement loopy belief propagation just don't seem to come up as much ad I'd like.

<comment><USER4> That's because most were toy examples dealing with discrete distributions in a few dimensions. Granted, these are mathematically easier to deal with, but not representative of real-world scenarios.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Algorithms: Design and Analysis Parts 1 and 2 ([https://www.coursera.org/course/algo](https://www.coursera.org/course/algo) and [https://www.coursera.org/course/algo2](https://www.coursera.org/course/algo2)) taught by Tim Roughgarden of Stanford. Tim's the best professor I've ever had either on or offline and he does a fantastic job explaining the concepts and breaking down the algorithms into digestible, intuitive pieces. His enthusiasm for the topic and the impressive algorithms is contagious and keeps the challenging courses fun and interesting.

Functional Programming Principles in Scala ([https://www.coursera.org/course/progfun](https://www.coursera.org/course/progfun)) by Martin Odersky, the inventor of Scala, is also excellent and a great way to learn and start using Scala and functional programming. Be forewarned though, once you get a taste of Scala, you'll have to be dragged kicking and screaming back to using Java :-).

<comment><USER6> Also, Algorithms, Part I and II ([https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partI](https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partI) and [https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partII](https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partII)) by Kevin Wayne and Robert Sedgewick of Princeton University. They approach algorithms from a slightly different angle than Stanford course does and in my opinion they complement each other very well. I was very impressed by the lectures, practical problems, the autograder, and the 'Algorythms 4th edition' book.

p.s. don't expect any certificate of acomplishment for those courses though. I did them both close to 100% and they did not even show up in completed courses on Coursera. I guess it's the Princenton thing, and I came just for the knowledge so that was fine with me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I haven't taken many online courses but my wife & I just took the course "Learning How to Learn" ([https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to- learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)) together and I wish this was available before I went to university. They do a great job of presenting the content and provide a lot of references for additional reading for those that have a deeper interest. It should probably be considered the pre-requisite to all other online courses!

</comment><comment><USER8> Dan Boneh's "Introduction to Cryptography".

(Part 1) [https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto](https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto) (Part 2) [https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto2](https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto2)

<comment><USER9> +1 for Dan's crypto1. I don't think crypto2 has been taught yet via coursera, as I've been waiting to take it and have seen it pushed back several times, and I've seen others say they'd been watching it get delayed for years. It does seem that Dan has been recording videos for part 2 in 2015 though (according to one of his students), so there's reason for hope that it might happen in 2016.

<comment><USER10> I finished Cryptography I in March 2012 and wanted to take Cryptography II ever since. Every time the announced time is close it gets pushed back by 4 months.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Programming Languages" \- [https://www.coursera.org/course/proglang](https://www.coursera.org/course/proglang)

"Compilers" \- [https://www.coursera.org/course/compilers](https://www.coursera.org/course/compilers)

<comment><USER12> Programming Languages is one of those courses that just keeps on giving.

A great basis for functional and Lisp fundamentals. I'm just starting a journey into Erlang and that course has meant that the switch isn't as difficult as it could have been.

The course format was interesting. I'm not 100% on board with doing peer assessment, but I did like being able to see how other people handled the assignments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My all star lineup would be:

The Analytics Edge - [https://www.edx.org/course/analytics-edge- mitx-15-071x-0](https://www.edx.org/course/analytics-edge-mitx-15-071x-0)

Design of Computer Programs - [https://www.udacity.com/course/design-of- computer-programs--...](https://www.udacity.com/course/design-of-computer- programs--cs212)

Justice - [https://www.edx.org/course/justice-harvardx- er22-1x-0](https://www.edx.org/course/justice-harvardx-er22-1x-0)

If I had more time I would love to go through the bioinformatics specialization on Coursera. They have 2 books and an exercise site (rosalind.info). It looks like great fun.

[https://www.coursera.org/specializations/bioinformatics?utm_...](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/bioinformatics?utm_medium=courseDescripTop)

<comment><USER14> Design of Computer Programs was decidedly the best course I ever took online. I was lucky enough to take it when it was first offered. Peter Norvig was very active in the course forum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Dr. Strang's linear algebra course is absolutely amazing: [http://web.mit.edu/18.06/www/videos.shtml](http://web.mit.edu/18.06/www/videos.shtml)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Strang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Strang)

<comment><USER16> You (or anybody else, for that matter) don't happen to know of something similar for geometric algebra, do you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Duolingo: [https://www.duolingo.com/](https://www.duolingo.com/)

It's not tech-related, but I have achieved near-fluency in one language in less than a year (Dutch), and I'm currently learning 3-4 others. (Russian, German, French, Italian) I find it very effective and easy to fit in around everyday life.

I would definitely recommend it to anyone else seeking to learn languages.

<comment><USER18> Are you living in the Netherlands and/or doing any study outside Duolingo?

<comment><USER19> You'll have to eventually study outside duolingo if you are serious about learning a language.

I would recommend starting with the duolingo course, completing it, then keeping your tree gold while exploring other learning material. Start with children's books and work your way up. There are also a lot of language exchange chat sites that are good to help you get more comfortable speaking a new language, but you will need a partner to practice with at some point.

Also I've found ReadLang (which I found on HN) to be a very helpful tool for faster learning, and I upload the majority of my ebooks into it.

I hope this helps.

<comment><USER18> Thanks. I was curious because I was using Duolingo to help with my (very rusty) Spanish. I could see that it was helping me to recall vocabulary (and some grammar points) but I didn't see how it would help me improve my listening.

Reading your comment, I thought you had achieved near-fluency in Dutch with _just_ Duolingo, and thought perhaps there was some functionality I had missed!

Thanks for the pointer to ReadLang. The click-to-translate and immediate ability to add to a flashcard list are similar to the features I used most in Pleco (dictionary on steroids) when I first started seriously studying Chinese.

I'll give Readlang a try.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Can't edit my earlier comment, so making a new one: There are quite a few people on HN who are great at Economics and Finance. Could someone recommend some courses and texts (and hopefully a "path") for a complete beginner to understand it? I'd like to be able to better understand things like the FT and all the stats that CNBC shows me etc. Also hopefully get skilled enough to start investing in the market. Not to mention, broad economical trends and projections etc. Thanks!

<comment><USER21> > broad economical trends and projections

Any good Economics Text book will do: like Principles of Economics/ Principles of Microeconomics, Gregory Mankiw

You can also try, although, personally I have not taken these:

[https://www.coursera.org/course/microecon](https://www.coursera.org/course/microecon)

[https://www.coursera.org/learn/principles-of- macroeconomics](https://www.coursera.org/learn/principles-of-macroeconomics)

> FT and all the stats that CNBC shows me

For Investment valuation and Corporate Finance Damodaran is one of the best sources:

[http://people.stern.nyu.edu/adamodar/](http://people.stern.nyu.edu/adamodar/)

Visit his blog, read his books. He has online classes as well

Also you can try, (I've not taken this course): [https://www.coursera.org/learn/financial- markets](https://www.coursera.org/learn/financial-markets)

For Value Investing, Benjamin Graham is a classic:

[http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive- Invest...](http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing- Essentials/dp/0060555661/ref=la_B000APZXBQ_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1448898823&sr=1-1)

> For Technical Analysis and Futures Trading though, there are tonnes of > books. May be you can start with these:

[http://www.amazon.com/Technical-Analysis-Financial- Markets-C...](http://www.amazon.com/Technical-Analysis-Financial-Markets- Comprehensive/dp/0735200661)

[http://www.amazon.com/Options-Futures-Other-Derivatives- Edit...](http://www.amazon.com/Options-Futures-Other-Derivatives- Edition/dp/0130090565)

And lastly,

> combine my CS background with Finance and do something interesting in it

[https://www.coursera.org/learn/computational- investing](https://www.coursera.org/learn/computational-investing)

<comment><USER22> Damodaran and Graham are fantastic, as is Shiller's Financial Markets. His 2008 course on Open Yale was an early spark in my career.

After a quick look at the "Technical Analysis" book preview on Amazon, I would caution that technical analysis is generally a rorschach test of humans finding patterns in data when there really aren't any. Skip that one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's not technical but the best I've taken so far is Songwriting on Coursera: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/songwriting](https://www.coursera.org/learn/songwriting)

Presented by Pat Pattison from Berklee College of Music, I started the course thinking who is this guy? By the end I was hanging off his every word. Even if you've never thought of writing a song it opens your eyes to the talent (and tricks!) in the music business.

<comment><USER24> I took the "Developing your Musicianship" and "Jazz Improvisation" courses, which I believe are in the same specialisation. The first one was at a very basic level and the improv was one was more advanced, but both were excellent. Highly recommended for aspiring musicians.

Good to hear a recommendation for the Songwriting course, thanks, I'll check it out.

<comment><USER25> I also started Songwriting and Jazz Improvisation, and while both had outstanding content and instruction, the peer-grading of assignments was a complete failure and forced me to quit the coursework timeline. Aside from reviewing others' work being a huge time sink, all feedback I ever got myself was completely useless, like "You did everything in the instructions, but I don't like this" or "Gee, I don't know enough to tell you how to do this any better." I would have gladly paid to get qualified feedback.

<comment><USER24> You're right, I should have mentioned that, as I actually had a similar experience. A lot of the comments I received were also along the lines of "that's great" (when I knew it wasn't and I was actually looking forward to some constructive criticism from someone better than me) or, as you mentioned, the classic "I don't know enough to help you".

Paying for qualified feedback would have made it better, although I still felt like I took a lot away from the taught content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I loved this course:

[https://www.coursera.org/learn/origins-universe- solarsystem](https://www.coursera.org/learn/origins-universe-solarsystem)

As the course progresses roughly chronologically (one theme per week) from the formation of the solar system to the present, it introduces the foundations and jargon of the disciplines of astronomy, geology, microbiology, paleontology, botany, ecology etc.

For some reason I never finish courses that are directly relevant to my job. After an 8 or 9 hour day doing tech stuff to make a deadline, spending another 1 or 2 hours a night doing tech stuff to make a deadline starts to feel like more work. I find the general science courses much more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER27> Peter Norvig's "Design of Computer Programs"

[https://www.udacity.com/course/design-of-computer- programs--...](https://www.udacity.com/course/design-of-computer-programs-- cs212)

An introduction to some semi-advanced programming concepts using an accessible language like Python, taught by a giant of CS.

Steve Huffman's "Web Development"

[https://www.udacity.com/course/web-development-- cs253](https://www.udacity.com/course/web-development--cs253)

Basics of developing a web application, it uses Google App Engine as a base but the concepts taught are easily extensible to other platforms. Steve comes off as a likable and competent teacher.

</comment><comment><USER28> [https://www.coursera.org/course/rprog](https://www.coursera.org/course/rprog) \- This is the best online course I've taken. Another one I am signed up for and have already done one week of lectures (preview mode) and find very applicable is [https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to- learn/](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn/)

<comment><USER29> Interestingly we get a lot of mixed reviews for R Prog course: [https://www.class-central.com/mooc/1713/coursera-r- programmi...](https://www.class-central.com/mooc/1713/coursera-r- programming#reviews)

Learning how to learn is the best course online that any one can take.

<comment><USER30> I've been spending the past hour on "Leaning how to learn" because of the recommendations here. I was... well, the course was definitely not quite what I expected.

What I'm seeing here is a bunch of "tricks", and a lot of "brain facts" which I would usually dismiss as pseudoscience. The course almost feels like a scam. What gives?

<comment><USER29> All of the course content is based on the hard science, but is simplified so that every one can understand. You can look at the background of one of the course instructor: [https://www.coursera.org/instructor/terry](https://www.coursera.org/instructor/terry)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Learning from Data by Caltech Professor Yaser Abu-Mostafa : [https://work.caltech.edu/telecourse.html](https://work.caltech.edu/telecourse.html). There was an edX version last year

MMDS: Mining Massive Datasets by Stanford professors Jure Leskovec, Anand Rajaraman,Jeff Ullman, Link: [https://www.coursera.org/course/mmds](https://www.coursera.org/course/mmds)

Neural Networks for Machine Learning: Geoffrey Hinton, Link: [https://www.coursera.org/course/neuralnets](https://www.coursera.org/course/neuralnets)

Artificial Intelligence for Robotics: Programming a Robotic Car, Sebastian Thrun Link: [https://www.udacity.com/course/artificial-intelligence- for-r...](https://www.udacity.com/course/artificial-intelligence-for-robotics --cs373)

Intro to Artificial Intelligence, Peter Norvig & Sebastian Thrun. This was the one which started it all in 2011, joined a little late by Andrew Ng's ML course which has been mentioned already.

Intro to Artificial Intelligence link: [https://www.udacity.com/course/intro- to-artificial-intellige...](https://www.udacity.com/course/intro-to- artificial-intelligence--cs271)

<comment><USER4> I enjoyed MMDS, but the lectures given by Ulman were painful to sit through. The man could simply not deliver a single sentence not read verbatim from a screen.

<comment><USER31> same here, had to watch some of those lectures at 2x speed

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Discrete Optimization [https://www.coursera.org/course/optimization](https://www.coursera.org/course/optimization) \-- I really enjoyed this challenging class with a very dynamic teacher, and organized around a set of tough problems that you can tackle using a choice of optimization paradigms (e.g. you can decide to "specialize" in "local search" if you want, and try to solve eveything with it).

<comment><USER33> I did that and it was super fun

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Convex Optimization by Stephen Boyd (Stanford EE364A) available on itunesU. There's also a CVX101 Mooc[1], but I don't how it's different from the original material. IMO it's not the topic itself, but the invaluable material for machine learning, statistics and applied mathematics. And Boyd has such a huge insight on the topic it's always a pleasure to watch his lectures.

[1][https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/Engineering/CVX101/Win...](https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/Engineering/CVX101/Winter2014/about)

<comment><USER35> Thanks for sharing! On iTunes U are there assignments or other course materials, or just the video lectures? I only see the videos there and I'd like to get my hands dirty practicing assignments and not just watch the lectures.

<comment><USER34> Then I suggest the website of the course where you can find homework and lots of material. You can follow the course as if you were enrolled. Also the free pdf copy of the book will certainly be useful.

[http://stanford.edu/class/ee364a/index.html](http://stanford.edu/class/ee364a/index.html) [http://stanford.edu/~boyd/cvxbook/](http://stanford.edu/~boyd/cvxbook/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Buddhism and Modern Psychology by Robert Wright (author of The Moral Animal). It uses evolutionary psychology, modularity of mind, and other modern cognitive science theories to explain why some modern version of the buddhist teachings (like meditations) work. It includes interesting interviews and solid book/article recommendations. It's very eye-opening to me and gave me a whole new perspective about happiness and meaning in life.

[https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-of- meditation](https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-of-meditation)

<comment><USER37> On the subject of happiness, Prof Raj Raghunathan's "A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment" is also something I would highly recommend. The learner stands to gain a lot of insights on the types of motivations serve to enhance as well as undermine happiness.

Check out [https://www.coursera.org/learn/happiness](https://www.coursera.org/learn/happiness)

Have changed for the better because of it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The Sedgewick/Wayne algorithm classes: [https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partI](https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partI) and [https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partII](https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partII)

</comment><comment><USER39> It has been over a year and I haven't finished it yet, but I find it the most interesting. It's Harvard's philosophy course [1]

Also, intro to comp sci by Harvard's open courseware. Without these, I might've dropped out of comp sci in my second year [2]

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-OxzIC6pic&list=PLvJoKWRPIu...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-OxzIC6pic&list=PLvJoKWRPIu8G6Si7LlvmBPA5rOJ9BA29R)

</comment><comment><USER40> I see a lot of tech related courses in this discussion; here is something off the wall if you are into "Coffee making" [https://www.skillshare.com/classes/culinary/From-Plant-to- Cu...](https://www.skillshare.com/classes/culinary/From-Plant-to-Cup-Brew-an- Amazing-Cup-of-Coffee/351651108)

Made by the guys from The Blue Bottle, splendid tutorial!

</comment><comment><USER41> This is CS50!

[https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-computer-science- har...](https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-computer-science-harvardx- cs50x)

<comment><USER42> The Harvard computer sci course really helped me out. I didn't take the class, but put all classes on my iPod. I would listen to lectures while exercising at night.

This course really helped me understand the ever changing computer lingo. I probally should have done the lessons.

Once you get used to the vocabulary, and all the acronyms--it's all starts to fall into place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> KhanAcademy!

I would have to say anything on KhanAcademy. Sal Khan just does an incredible job of explaining things. I particularly like his statistics course as a good primer into stats or if you need to quickly brush up on the subject

[https://www.khanacademy.org/math/probability/statistics- infe...](https://www.khanacademy.org/math/probability/statistics-inferential)

<comment><USER24> Seconded. Brought my linear algebra and probability theory up to scratch within a day. I don't know what it is about how he explains the material, but it just clicked for me first time, every time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> sicp is the best programming course hands down. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Op3QLzMgSY&list=PLB63C06FAF...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Op3QLzMgSY&list=PLB63C06FAF154F047)

<comment><USER45> Dat music, tho.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> MIT's 8.05x, Mastering Quantum Mechanics ([https://www.edx.org/course/mastering-quantum-mechanics- mitx-...](https://www.edx.org/course/mastering-quantum-mechanics-mitx-8-05x))

It's the only MOOC I've taken that was anywhere close to the kind of experience I had as an actual undergraduate at MIT. Outstanding lectures with accompanying lecture notes, challenging but rewarding problem sets, lots of interaction by the professor and other staff in the forums.

It's not a course in the sense of having problem sets and grades, but V. Balakrishnan's lecture series on classical physics ([https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5E4E56893588CBA8](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5E4E56893588CBA8)) is amazing, just incredibly dense with insight.

</comment><comment><USER47> Earlier this year I did the Stanford _Introduction to Mathematical Thinking_ course on Coursera [1]. I found it fairly challenging but managed to finish with a distinction. The instructor was particularly good.

I'm now working through UCSD _Interaction Design_ specialisation [2], which is a series of courses followed by a project. So far its been very good, although the short course format (3-4 weeks) means that there isn't time for much of a community to form among the participants. I've learned a lot though.

I'd recommend both courses.

[1] [https://www.coursera.org/course/maththink](https://www.coursera.org/course/maththink)

[2] [https://www.coursera.org/specializations/interaction- design](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/interaction-design)

<comment><USER48> I also loved the Mathematical Thinking course, it was the first MOOC I completed and still one of my favorites!

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The Hardware/Software Interface - [https://class.coursera.org/hwswinterface-002](https://class.coursera.org/hwswinterface-002)

This course is amazing, especially for the assignments.

</comment><comment><USER50> CS188.1x Artificial Intelligence by BerkeleyX at edx.org. [1] I took this course back in Spring 2013 and I really enjoy the course project of making an intelligent Pac-Man. :) Through this course, besides learning AI, I also learned Python (before this, I didn't know how to code in Python at all). And with the knowledge from this course, I made a simple connect four game with AI implementation as the player's opponent. [2]

[1] [https://www.edx.org/course/artificial-intelligence-uc- berkel...](https://www.edx.org/course/artificial-intelligence-uc-berkeleyx- cs188-1x)

[2] [http://kenrick95.github.io/c4/demo/](http://kenrick95.github.io/c4/demo/)

<comment><USER20> Taking this course right now. Just about to start Homework 2. Awesome stuff. I've laid out a curriculum for myself starting from this course and ending in ML expertise. :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Geoff Hinton's (one of the most important guys in neural nets) coursera course from 2012 taught me most of what I know about neural nets (he starts with the basic sigmoid, backprop, convnets, dropout, RBMs and lstm nets).

[https://www.coursera.org/course/neuralnets](https://www.coursera.org/course/neuralnets)

</comment><comment><USER52> [https://courses.platzi.com/](https://courses.platzi.com/), there are like 70 courses in Spanish (frontend, backend, marketing, DBA, DevOps, android and apple development) but they also have 16 in English, most of them are talks with the best YC startups CEOs and founders.

</comment><comment><USER53> Now the MOOCs are all popular, there are a lot of interesting courses out there, but I feel the best one is still the first online course I took in 2012, the pilot from edX (MITx at that time) - 6.002x Circuits and Electronics ([https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu](https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu)) by Dr. Anant Agarwal and Dr. Gerald Sussman.

It's an awesome course that introduces one to the electronics that goes behind modern day computers and smartphones. It really helped me understand how things work and what questions to ask.

</comment><comment><USER54> The Javascript-Courses by Anthony Alicea on Udemy are by far the best I ever spent money on in terms of learning to code.

[https://www.udemy.com/user/anthonypalicea/](https://www.udemy.com/user/anthonypalicea/)

</comment><comment><USER55> Eric Lander's incredible 'Introduction to Biology - The Secret of Life' was my first step away from data analysis for online marketing clients (which I didn't love) to bioinformatics (which I do very much love)

[https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-biology-secret- life-...](https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-biology-secret-life- mitx-7-00x-2)

A Fantastic course from a legendary educator.

<comment><USER56> I'd like to second this. I had only slight interest in Biology but got completely hooked into the course because the teacher makes things so plausible and exciting. I wish one could do bioinformatics remotely, I'd seriously change careers ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Yale has a great class on Game Theory. It provides some alternatives to solving problems from the normal CS algorithms.

[http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/econ-159](http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/econ-159)

</comment><comment><USER58> Great suggestions here. Have you looked at this repository: [https://github.com/prakhar1989/awesome- courses](https://github.com/prakhar1989/awesome-courses)

It's a collection of some of the best courses on the internet. The topics covered is quite diverse - but mostly related to computer science.

</comment><comment><USER59> Introduction to Cryptography, by Christof Paar. His book ' Understanding Cryptography: A Textbook for Students and Practitioners' also provides great insight to the subject. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aHkqB2-46k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aHkqB2-46k)

</comment><comment><USER60> HBX Core

[http://hbx.hbs.edu/hbx-core](http://hbx.hbs.edu/hbx-core)

Its a paid online business course by Harvard Business School with 3 modules - Business Analytics, Economics for Managers, Financial Accounting

Material is not super challenging (maybe except for Accounting), but its still a lot of work and very rewarding. There is a strong social element to the course because they incentivize students to ask and answer each other's questions. At the end of it, you have to go to a testing centre and give a 3 hour exam on everything they have taught you. I finished this course a few months ago and really enjoyed the material and all the people I met through it. Highly recommend!

</comment><comment><USER61> Convolutional Networks from Stanford [1]. No video, but comes with a wonderful set of ipython notebooks to illustrate and work with cnn's.

Statistical Mechanics Algorithms and Computations [2]. Very well done video's shot in a studio with a green screen. Comes with massive amounts of small python programs to illustrate the material.

[1]: [http://cs231n.stanford.edu/](http://cs231n.stanford.edu/)

[2]: [https://www.coursera.org/course/smac](https://www.coursera.org/course/smac)

</comment><comment><USER62> Abstract Algebra by Benedict Gross from the Harvard Extension School.

<comment><USER63> this looks like [+] an excellent course, if only b/c it uses a text by Artin.

[+] [http://wayback.archive- it.org/3671/20150529001651/https://ww...](http://wayback.archive- it.org/3671/20150529001651/https://www.extension.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/openlearning/math222/files/OLI_MathE222_Syllabus.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Paid, but I got a lot of this course for learning Ruby/Rails [https://www.gotealeaf.com/](https://www.gotealeaf.com/)

</comment><comment><USER65> [https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partI](https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partI) [https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partII](https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partII)

I took these to prepare for first-job interviews coming out of grad school. Got an offer from a company frequently mentioned on this site, so I guess they helped.

</comment><comment><USER66> For statistics I really liked Data Analysis and Statistical Inference by Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel. I think I understood statistics beyond formulas after I took this course. Apart from typical pen and paper problems, you also get programming exercises in R.

[https://www.coursera.org/course/statistics](https://www.coursera.org/course/statistics)

<comment><USER67> +1 I recently completed this course. It's really quite good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> So much for having any extra free time after reading these comments

</comment><comment><USER69> Andrew Ng's ML Stanford Online Class. This was before Coursera, the first one and the one that got me hooked into ML and Data Science.

After a few years working in the work force I decided to go back to get a master in Statistic to get into this field once and for all.

</comment><comment><USER70> Developing iOS 8 Apps with Swift [https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/developing-ios-8-apps- swi...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/developing-ios-8-apps- swift/id961180099)

</comment><comment><USER71> I really enjoied Introduction to Operations Management ([https://www.coursera.org/learn/wharton- operations](https://www.coursera.org/learn/wharton-operations)) which is not about CS/IT but more about organizing process workflow (i.e. how to make shops, plants or any kind of multi-operator job more efficient).

I also liked a Coursera one titled "Data Analysis" but the url now returns a 404 ([https://www.coursera.org/course/dataanalysis](https://www.coursera.org/course/dataanalysis)) and it probably morphed in something slightly different.

</comment><comment><USER72> Not technology related:

A Global History of Architecture: [https://www.edx.org/course/global-history- architecture-mitx-...](https://www.edx.org/course/global-history-architecture- mitx-4-605x3)

<comment><USER73> I am currently doing this course and love every minute of it. The course is more of a history course than architecture per se. You will get a grand ride through the centuries all the way from 3000 BCE to the present.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> I've found Deborah Kurata's course content good [https://www.pluralsight.com/authors/deborah- kurata](https://www.pluralsight.com/authors/deborah-kurata) in particular [https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/angularjs-line-of- busine...](https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/angularjs-line-of-business- applications)

My only issue is her voice can be very monotonous and I find it hard to do more than an hour without having to walk away and wake myself up. Her course content is very good though.

</comment><comment><USER75> I a compsci grad. My favorite one is

The Hardware/Software Interface: [https://www.coursera.org/course/hwswinterface](https://www.coursera.org/course/hwswinterface)

</comment><comment><USER76> Best general CS class I have found so far. Well laid out, easy to follow, and very informative.

[http://csfieldguide.org.nz/index.html](http://csfieldguide.org.nz/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER77> My technology related list includes most of the same courses already listed. But off-technology, the "modern history" class (which appears to have been split in two[0]) was incredibly entertaining and gripping in addition to being educational.

[0] [https://www.coursera.org/learn/modern- world](https://www.coursera.org/learn/modern-world) [1] [https://www.coursera.org/learn/modern- world-2](https://www.coursera.org/learn/modern-world-2)

</comment><comment><USER20> If anybody has a good course on Compilers except the old one that's on Coursera (which was decent but honestly the instructor wasn't amazing at holding my attention), that would be awesome. :)

<comment><USER78> Just watch it at double speed and he only needs to hold your attention for half as long :-D - plus you _really_ need to concentrate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Andrew Ng's machine learning course on Coursera.

Surprisingly, I also found Khan Academy's organic chemistry videos very helpful when I was studying bioinformatics and needed to refresh my chemistry skills

</comment><comment><USER80> I dare say Ryan Kroonenburg's [https://www.udemy.com/aws-certified-developer- associate-2015...](https://www.udemy.com/aws-certified-developer- associate-2015/)

Also if you're into getting into making videos, [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lessons-for-final-cut- pro-x/...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lessons-for-final-cut- pro-x/id952621966?mt=12) was surprisingly good 10 bucks spent.

</comment><comment><USER81> Something a bit different - I really enjoyed Robert's Electronics Design courses: [http://www.fedevel.com/academy/schematic-pcb-design- course-o...](http://www.fedevel.com/academy/schematic-pcb-design-course- online/)

It teaches all the tips and tricks to make professional designs, a ton more practical knowledge than my university course or my first EE job.

</comment><comment><USER82> Fundamentals of Music Theory. The instructors were really active in the facebook group, and took time to make extra videos to answer common questions.

The quizzes were good and fairly marked, the exam was tough, but the peer- review guidelines for it were very clear and easy to follow.

[https://www.coursera.org/course/musictheory](https://www.coursera.org/course/musictheory)

</comment><comment><USER83> I took Andrew Ng's machine learning class twice (scored >99% both times). That was my favorite. I have been working in the AI field since the 1980s, including a lot of neural network applications, but I still found his class to be an incredible source of practical knowledge.

Other favorites were Martin Odersky's functional programming with Scala and Erik Meijer's Haskell class at eDX.

</comment><comment><USER84> Cloud Computing Concepts by Indranil Gupta [https://www.coursera.org/course/cloudcomputing](https://www.coursera.org/course/cloudcomputing)

I thought this was just about VPS, virtualization, NoSQL DBs but I was amazed that it also includes different algorithms for distributed systems like Gossips, MapReduce, Paxos, etc.

</comment><comment><USER85> I found this course on European painting between 1400 to 1800 to be both well organised/presented and very beneficial in every area of life: [https://www.edx.org/course/european-paintings-leonardo- rembr...](https://www.edx.org/course/european-paintings-leonardo-rembrandt- uc3mx-ceh-1-enx).

</comment><comment><USER78> Can anyone recommend a course on business organisation? I'm planning on starting a startup and want to round out my business knowledge as to who I should hire.

I want to stay in charge of tech & strategy while letting someone else manage finance, hr, etc. I couldn't find a single one that actually explains what a CEO does on coursera/edx/novoed.

<comment><USER21> Try Steve Blank's How to Build a Startup. Link: [https://www.udacity.com/course/how-to-build-a-startup-- ep245](https://www.udacity.com/course/how-to-build-a-startup--ep245)

<comment><USER78> This doesn't seem to cover business organisation either. I know there are plenty of these "how to start a startup" courses, but i'm looking to fill in a specific niche of knowledge, not have to sift through another general course.

That said I've heard great things about "4 steps" but haven't got round to reading it yet so I guess it's worth a watch based on the instructor, so thanks anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My Coursera profile lists 67 courses, I have completed ~15 of them and with a passing grade ~8 of them. My most favorite one, which for me was the hardest as well, was The Hardware/Software Interface by Gaetano Borriello and Luis Ceze[1]. I also liked Computer Networks[2] even though it's an introductory course, Functional Programming Principles in Scala[3] which is surprisingly easy unlike the follow up course[4], High Performance Scientific Computing[5], Software Security[6] and Cryptography[7] although I prefer Boneh's class. For non-IT related courses I liked Think Again: How to Reason and Argue[8], Crafting an Effective Writer: Tools of the Trade (Fundamental English Writing)[9], Child Nutrition and Cooking[10] and Work Smarter, Not Harder: Time Management for Personal & Professional Productivity[11].

I often take time to think why I have so many started but not finished courses. Most of them are abandoned on the first week and my assumption is that when I enroll my expectations for the course content and the workload needed are wrong.

Occasionally, I abandon courses because they demand too much time to get something working on linux or because of luck of time. The thing that I noticed about me is that when I get a little behind the schedule then it's almost certainly that I will abandon the course. Additionally, when I try to commit on two courses at the same time then it's certain that I will abandon at least one (usually both).

[1]: [https://www.coursera.org/course/hwswinterface](https://www.coursera.org/course/hwswinterface)

[2]: [https://www.coursera.org/course/comnetworks](https://www.coursera.org/course/comnetworks)

[3]: [https://www.coursera.org/course/progfun](https://www.coursera.org/course/progfun)

[4]: [https://www.coursera.org/course/reactive](https://www.coursera.org/course/reactive)

[5]: [https://www.coursera.org/course/scicomp](https://www.coursera.org/course/scicomp)

[6]: [https://www.coursera.org/course/softwaresec](https://www.coursera.org/course/softwaresec)

[7]: [https://www.coursera.org/course/cryptography](https://www.coursera.org/course/cryptography)

[8]: [https://www.coursera.org/course/thinkagain](https://www.coursera.org/course/thinkagain)

[9]: [https://www.coursera.org/course/basicwriting](https://www.coursera.org/course/basicwriting)

[10]: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/childnutrition/home/welcome](https://www.coursera.org/learn/childnutrition/home/welcome)

[11]: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/work-smarter-not- harder/home/...](https://www.coursera.org/learn/work-smarter-not- harder/home/welcome)

</comment><comment><USER86> Not technology related but I personally like Aswath Damodaran's valuation courses [http://www.graduatetutor.com/corporate-finance- tutoring/aswa...](http://www.graduatetutor.com/corporate-finance- tutoring/aswath-damodaran-tutoring/)

</comment><comment><USER87> Erik Meijer's FP101x Functional Programming (Haskell and others) [https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-functional- programmi...](https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-functional-programming- delftx-fp101x-0)

</comment><comment><USER88> Coursera Calculus 1 - [https://www.coursera.org/learn/calculus1/home/welcome](https://www.coursera.org/learn/calculus1/home/welcome) , Jim Fowler makes Calculus a very entertaining topic.

</comment><comment><USER89> Marvin Minsky, Society of Mind Class Lecture Playlist on Youtube - [https://youtu.be/-pb3z2w9gDg?list=PLqw2b1BiJEx8Ii2RJBk9C0iC3...](https://youtu.be/-pb3z2w9gDg?list=PLqw2b1BiJEx8Ii2RJBk9C0iC3pG__EpSJ)

</comment><comment><USER90> As a medical student, I though the Coursera course on Clinical Problem Solving was quite good: [https://www.coursera.org/course/clinprobsolv](https://www.coursera.org/course/clinprobsolv)

</comment><comment><USER91> Learn to Program: The Fundamentals by U of T on Coursera [https://www.coursera.org/course/programming1](https://www.coursera.org/course/programming1)

Did not see any other mentions. It was excellent.

</comment><comment><USER92> Roy Osherove 's TDD master class changed the way we worked at Aol.

</comment><comment><USER93> Can anyone recommend a bioinformatics course (esp. an intro level one)?

<comment><USER94> I've only just started it, but this looks great in terms of the content they cover, and they also provide quite a few programming tasks. [https://class.coursera.org/hiddenmessages-006](https://class.coursera.org/hiddenmessages-006)

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> My favorite was Dan Ariely's Introduction to Irrational Behavior.

<comment><USER96> Seconded - perhaps not my absolute top favorite but definitely one of the most memorable I've taken.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> IMHO, the best course website is [http://www.freecodecamp.com/](http://www.freecodecamp.com/) to learn Modern App Development.

</comment><comment><USER98> Engineering Software as a Service: An Agile Approach Using Cloud Computing

[http://www.saasbook.info/courses](http://www.saasbook.info/courses)

</comment><comment><USER99> Can anyone recommend their favorite way to learn foreign languages? I am curious if there are any new online courses that have made improvements in this area.

<comment><USER100> Not new - but I had the most fun and most progress with learning French with [https://www.duolingo.com/](https://www.duolingo.com/) My kids got into it as well and at one point we would all sit together and do one lesson a day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> YouTube CrashCourse

<comment><USER102> Anatomy & Physiology

U.S. Government and Politics

Economics

Intellectual Property

Astronomy

Philosophy

World History

Literature

Biology

and more!

[https://www.youtube.com/user/crashcourse/playlists](https://www.youtube.com/user/crashcourse/playlists)

</comment></comment><comment><USER103> I liked CodeSchool: not everything there is great, but is very good overall, has a great structure and can teach you many technologies.

</comment><comment><USER104> Peter Norvig's "Design of Computer Programs" on udacity.com

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Great replies! Thanks guys!

<comment><USER103> Feel free to consolidate the list and publish somewhere. This thread got lenghty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> mixergy.com</comment>


Discussing the "Gig Economy" not everyone is convinced - <AUTHOR> https://www.solipsys.co.uk/Chitter/TheGigEconomy.svg <comment><USER2> Evolutionary enslavement. With the ability of a task to be bargained down to a very small payment by the elimination of local monopolies most of the developed world people would find the price too low to bother with - as I have observed. Good thing cars can not be assembled by gig workers as the hourly wage would plummet. That said, there are some mines in Australia that are creating trucks that can be driven by an AI to haul loads from the pits on a well delineated road = analogous to a Gig worker the AI works for a few volts - a true slave? Would a country limit foreign gig or AI workers? They may at some point do this if there are hordes of people fired and their jobs gigged or AI'd. This will unfold over the next few years, a lot like autonomous cars/truck will replace some (but not all) drivers.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Overview: [https://www.solipsys.co.uk/Chitter/TheGigEconomy.png](https://www.solipsys.co.uk/Chitter/TheGigEconomy.png)

More: [https://www.solipsys.co.uk/Chitter/TheGigEconomy2.svg](https://www.solipsys.co.uk/Chitter/TheGigEconomy2.svg)

Overview: [https://www.solipsys.co.uk/Chitter/TheGigEconomy2.png](https://www.solipsys.co.uk/Chitter/TheGigEconomy2.png)</comment>


Ask HN: Validate a Product Idea for a Social Cause - <AUTHOR> The last week was exceptional for me, I took up the 7 day, 7 pay-it-forward tasks challenge and have shared my experience here - https://medium.com/@YourProductGuy/the-joy-of-giving-da976e9b7a13
Now, I want to take this a step further:
How about a uber-type model (though not on-demand to start with) where we can connect A to B, ie. those in need of food to places where there is excess?
What do you'll think about this? What might be the challenges?
Malnutrition is a huge problem in countries like mine (India) and I think this will be a step in trying to solve this problem. Did an offline validation with 3 cafes here and it seemed to work. Want to try reaching out to more now and need help building with a website for credibility and put out testimonials as well as reach out to volunteers, organisations and raise funds.
Non-techie here, so anyone got a weekend to spare?
Thanks again :) <comment><USER2> In Indonesia we have Gojek, who offer a courier service thats extremely cheap. Ive seen it used to distribute portions of home-cooked meals to relatives.

P2P is extremely difficult due to quality control issues though. Imagine a food poisoning case. Id hazard that its close to impossible to test food effectively en-route while keeping costs low.

What is maybe possible is to partner with existing food stalls and have them sign up to a plan/brand that says they will distribute leftovers or charitable meals.

Each evening these merchants specify what meals they have to donate. These then appear in an app accessible by vetted low income users. You don't need strict quality control as they are already established outlets (even if stalls).

An MVP of this would be to sign up some stalls, give them a nice logo that says they help with the hunger problem. Then call them each eve and ask if they have leftovers. If they do, send an on-demand driver to pick them up and route to nearest the shelter / church / mosque etc who can help distribute to those who need.

= PS For a developed market version I spotted this on the front page a little while go - seems to be a few like it:

[https://www.gocopia.com/](https://www.gocopia.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much for that roadmap, sounds viable. And I completely understand, quality control seems to be the biggest challenge.

GoCopia is exactly what we want to do here, thanks so much for sharing :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There's an organization in New York called City Harvest. They collect extra food from restaurants, supermarkets, regional farmers, and distributors. And they distribute it to soup kitchens, food pantries, and special markets for the poor. They rescue over 50 million pounds of food every year that would otherwise be wasted.

I'm sure there are both major similarities and differences with how things might work in India. You might want to reach out to them for information about how they operate.

This is a lovely idea. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much for sharing! Checking them out! And yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to do here :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How stock price is determined? - <AUTHOR> This may be a naive question! How is a stock priced ?<p>I know the usual demand and supply bit [0]. I need help in understanding how a stock trading at $25 goes to $26 or $24.<p>[0] https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/12/how-are-share-prices-set.asp <comment><USER2> Market Makers.

These are the guys that "make the market". It's their job to buy and sell the shares they manage (are market makers for).

This is why you can open an order for stock X and always get filled -- it's at the price _they_ set.

This means you don't have to wait (for days/weeks?!) for a buyer/seller for that block of shares you want to sell/buy -- you buy/sell them to a market maker and they take it from there.

These guys run a "book" of orders and it's based on this that they offer prices, their goal is to have a balanced book and not be overtly long or short a particular stock, but they do for certain periods of time (think during the day's open trading session).

In practice you'll discover that MMs have ultimate power is guiding a stock's price, they can hold buys and sells until it's optimal for them.

Essentially, you're not competing against other buyers/sellers in a free open market, but against MMs who hold all the cards.

</comment><comment><USER3> The stock exchange matches buyers and sellers. The stock price is the average price the stock was trading that day. You can sell stock at any price but if it's too high you won't have many buyers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Lets say I own a single stock of xyz co, stock is at $25 and I as an ambitious seller decide to sell it at $50 and by a stroke of luck someone makes a fat finger error enters a buy order at $50.

will the stock price tick to $50 for that one transaction ?

<comment><USER4> It's a double sided auction so someone who have a sell order at $26 will have priority (Assuming his order has the lowest price), and the stock will tick to $26.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They have a data structure called order book [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_book_(trading)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_book_\(trading\))

To match buyers with sellers

</comment><comment><USER6> Isn't it just the present value of future cash flows</comment>


ShiftSpace – GPU VMs Cheaper and Faster Than AWS - <AUTHOR> https://shiftspace.io/ <comment><USER2> This would be perfect for solo Deep learning practitioners like me. Frustrated with the speed of the aws gpu instances for running even relatively small models. This can be the 3dhubs for Deep learning!</comment>


Debian Squeeze Frozen  - <AUTHOR> http://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/2010/msg00009.html Debian Squeeze Frozen <comment><USER2> There's also a version of this up on the Debian website: <http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20100806>

One very interesting thing about this release is the introduction of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD. I've been running it in a VirtualBox, and while it has some bugs it's also a wonderful addition to Debian. They've just recently got the userspace ZFS tools working on a FreeBSD 8.1 kernel running a GNU userland and a GNU C library.

We're heading for a brave new world where the kernel is just another package, not some immutable part of the whole system.

<comment><USER3> _We're heading for a brave new world where the kernel is just another package, not some immutable part of the whole system._

While I can agree with this on the grounds that diversity of choice is a Good Thing and will introduce innovation and cross pollination between the two camps (hence my comment about being happy that they are experimenting with it); I disagree with it because the solidity and strength of FreeBSD primarily comes from it being developed and offered as a cohesive whole (Kernel _and_ userland). Lack of cohesion is one of my major gripes with the GNU/Linux "distribution" model; although, I will say that Debian seems to be making up for this with excellent progress!

<comment><USER4> > primarily comes from it being developed and offered as a cohesive whole > (Kernel and userland)

To a large extent this is also the Debian model, which is a lot more integrated than many Linux distributions--- they don't just cobble together a bunch of packages and call it a day. Like FreeBSD, they do take a lot of things from upstream (e.g. both use X.Org as their X11 server), but also like FreeBSD, they heavily customize the core packages and develop them so they work together well. There are core Debian teams working on its versions of the Linux kernel (<http://wiki.debian.org/DebianKernel>), X.org (<http://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce>), Exim MTA (<http://wiki.debian.org/PkgExim4>), package manager (<http://wiki.debian.org/Apt>), etc., along with thousands of Debian-specific patches to other packages, which are maintained as far as possible in an integrated manner to meet the unified Debian system policies.

It's not entirely identical, but I don't think it's _that_ far off. I think the FreeBSD core system may be developed somewhat more as a single entity (for example, because FreeBSD literally develops its own kernel, rather than customizing an upstream one), but Debian may actually have more cohesive development across the entire system. My impression, though I could be wrong, is that FreeBSD ports are more spotty when it comes to really being managed seamlessly with the base system.

<comment><USER5> > _To a large extent this is also the Debian model, which is a lot more > integrated than many Linux distributions (...)_

Is there anything that Debian does with regards to integration that Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS/RHEL, and even Gentoo _don't_ do?

<comment><USER6> A colleague was telling me yesterday that the official Apache Tomcat packages for CentOS/RHEL keep all their runtime temporary files in /usr/share/tomcat; that's the sort of thing that would never be allowed in a Debian package (runtime state belongs in /var).

Another example: The Debian packaging guidelines demand that every executable have a man page available, even if the upstream project doesn't supply one. They're not always as complete and comprehensive as one might hope, but they're often enough to give you the general gist of what a command is supposed to do, and how to use it.

Yet another example: Debian has an 'alternatives' system, by which you can configure the system and tell it that your preferred terminal emulator is 'xterm', your preferred text-editor is pico, etc. (this extends to man pages too - if you make "x-terminal-emulator" point at xterm, then "man x-terminal- emulator" will give you the xterm man page). Every package that Debian ships that is able to spawn a terminal emulator in some way is required to launch x-terminal-emulator rather than hard-coding xterm or rxvt or whatever.

The downside to all this is that if you know how to configure/administer package X on RedHat or FreeBSD, you might get lost trying to find where the package keeps its stuff in Debian. The upside is that if you know how to configure/administer package X on Debian, you should find it pretty easy to configure/administer packages Y and Z as well.

One more example: The last time I installed fetchmail on RedHat, I wound up having to create /root/.fetchmailrc and write my own cronjob to run it. The last time I installed fetchmail on Debian, it already came with an /etc/init.d script that would do all the periodic checking for me, all I had to do was create an "/etc/fetchmailrc" file (like any other system service) and start it up (like any other system service). Debian's integration goes far, far beyond any other distro I've seen.

<comment><USER7> yea, Debian is goodness. I think Ubuntu inherits most of that goodness, but the packaging seems to be a little more flakey. I've had more dist-upgrade failures in Ubuntu than with Debian. FWIW as of now, I use Debian on servers, and Ubuntu on desktops. I wouldn't use any distro other than Debian for a server.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The claim that "This is the first time a Linux distribution has been extended to also allow use of a non-Linux kernel" is a little odd, given that Gentoo/FreeBSD has been around for several years: <http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gentoo-alt/bsd/fbsd/>

Admittedly, Gentoo's port uses the FreeBSD libc whereas Debian ported glibc, and the Gentoo port is not exactly ready for prime time, but claiming Debian did it first is a bit of a stretch.

<comment><USER2> Debian has also had Debian GNU/Hurd in unstable state for years. That Gentoo/FreeBSD page mentions that the port is "experimental" and "incomplete". So presumably they're talking about a non-Linux kernel as a first-class component in a stable release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Linux 2.6.32 will be quite outdated upon release, I hope they will make a squeeze 'n half like they did for Etch.

Also, I hope python 2.6 will be enough for the Squeeze lifetime, as python 2.7 is stable now. Python 2.5 on Lenny (while 2.6 was already released) was problematic in term of lacking features.

<comment><USER10> There's always backports.org :-)

I'm surprised how many debian users don't know about backports. The packages there are quite stable and is useful for the one or two things you need updated versions of.

<comment><USER11> and <http://www.dotdeb.org/> for php/mysql

and <http://debian.dc-uoit.net/debian-multimedia/> for an ffmpeg that has modernish codecs

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm glad to see that they are experimenting with mixing Debian userland and the FreeBSD kernel... 6.0 looks like a very promising release.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been using Squeeze in production systems for several months, as I needed a wide variety of bug fixes/features it provided over Lenny. It has been completely stable - glad to see Debian development moving forward.

</comment><comment><USER13> I feel like I've just witnessed a comet passing or a lunar eclipse.

</comment><comment><USER14> Do these announcements belong here? I mean, those interested in learning about new releases of Debian, Ubuntu or some other software can just subscribe to dedicated mailing lists.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, especially since debian freezes come so often that the resulting deluge of announcements has a very spammy feeling to it.

<comment><USER14> Disclosure: Debian lover here.

Do you think the world runs on Debian? What if everybody started making announcements about his/her Linux distribution of choice? And what about other major pieces of software? Since you got 15 upvotes so far, I guess that would be really appreciated.

<comment><USER16> > _What if everybody started making announcements about his/her Linux > distribution of choice?_

My unscientific impression is that the distributions of choice among active HN users who follow up the development and progress of their distribution closely are largely limited to Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and CentOS. News of pretty much every milestone release of these distributions is submitted, usually upvoted, and seems to be appreciated, before falling off the front page in less than a day in the most extreme case (final releases). The disaster scenario of this being the case for 43985 different distributions seems outside the realm of possibility, thus there's not much cause for concern.

<comment><USER14> I'm a bit amazed that HNers have to know from here whenever there is some big news regarding their softwares of choice.

I didn't mention just GNU/Linux distributions, though, but _all_ major pieces of software (languages, frameworks, etc.). Of course, if there is something special about some news, we'd like to know. For instance, when Debian started building on FreeBSD kernel, well, that's news! Instead, recently Debian got frozen... so what? If you already follow the development of Debian, you'd already learned that from other sources, and reading it here wouldn't add any value.

It's about keeping an high signal to noise ratio. Recently, I feel HN is becoming noisier. Maybe I just overreacted because that annoys me. Well, it seems I'm the only one who's annoyed by this "noise", however. Or I just picked the less offensive source.

Thanks for listening.

<comment> mkr-hn HN seems to be as much about discussion as it is about news. Otherwise, why have comments?

HN people might hear about it elsewhere, but this is probably where they would prefer to discuss it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why you should have a side project - <AUTHOR> https://erickhun.com/posts/why-you-should-have-a-side-project/ <comment><USER3> I really think with a proper full time job working long hours its unrealistic to spend much time on any side project. Its much healthier to try to spend time with friends and family, or hobbies. If you have young children there is little chance.

What everyone should strive for is the side project at work. Making new tools, monitoring systems, refactoring some library, user friendly applications, experimenting with new languages. Google is famous for the 20% project, but most people can get away with spending a few hours a week on whatever they want while working. If you deliver something useful its also a good way of getting recognition.

<comment><USER4> > _I really think with a proper full time job working long hours its > unrealistic to spend much time on any side project. Its much healthier to > try to spend time with friends and family, or hobbies. If you have young > children there is little chance._

I hear this comment every time this topic comes up, and quite honestly, it is BS. If you're in the minority of people who are spending every waking hour productively, maybe this is true. But for the majority, it certainly isn't. I know plenty of people who spend >10-20 hours every week on:

\- Watching TV

\- Surfing the web

\- Playing games

\- Watching sports

\- Going camping/hiking etc

\- Weekend trips

\- Fishing

\- etc etc etc

When someone suggests hiking, reading and meditation as a good way to spend your free time, everyone nods along and talks about how wonderful it is. But when someone talks about building a side-project, suddenly everyone has twin babies and elderly parents with dementia who are taking up every waking minute.

There's nothing wrong with any of the other alternatives listed above. If you're burnt out from coding, go ahead and do whatever gives you happiness and satisfaction. But please acknowledge that building side-projects is eminently realistic, and for some people, will give far more happiness and satisfaction than binging netflix.

<comment><USER5> Building a side project is work, spending time with family, camping, going on trips isn't.

It's not so much that we can't accept that some people enjoy working, it's that they're screwing their health. There is no free lunch, staring at monitors for years on end will take its toll.

Gaming and watching TV aren't healthy for computer workers either.

<comment><USER6> I hate this attitude. It's the same attitude that anything that happens on a computer is work because someone uses a computer at work. I also use chairs and desks and toilets at work and I eat food at work and talk to people at work and walk to diffenent places at work so I guess walking, sitting, talking to people, pooping etc all all work.

No, rather a computer is a general purpose device on which I can make music, listen to music, edit video, watch moives, learn a new language, look up recipies, talk to friends, chat with experts on all kinds of topics. I don't stop using the computer "because I use it at work"

The same is true of programming and side progects. Programming is not work. Programming is something I do at work like I alos talk to people at work, sit at work, walk at work, eat at work, write emails at work, chat at work.

Programming is also a fun activity in and of itself I get lots of enjoyment out of just like I get enjoyment from those other things. That fact that I do it at work as ZERO influence on my enjoyment of it. I might not enjoy certain things I do at work but that has nothing to do with "programming" and everything to do with goals or don't believe in or busy work for the sake of busy work or having to do things someway I don't agree with, all of which disappear on my own stuff.

<comment><USER7> If I came home from band practice and spent all night writing music and playing my guitar, people would say "wow, that guy is so passionate and creative". But since my craft involves a computer, they instead say "you're going to burn yourself out. You should get a different hobby."

The computer is a tool. It's the tool that I use to create things, and that creativity gives me life. I don't think people without creative hobbies can really understand this.

<comment><USER8> Band practice isn't equivalent to music work. It would be more like being on tour, and coming home to play some more. Which I doubt musicians do. Most I've heard find touring pretty taxing.

From my musician friends too, I seldom see them ever spending more than 8 hours a day doing music. As music work isn't really 9 to 5 style.

Here we're talking having done an 8 to 10 hour day programming, Monday through Friday, and then spending even more once home and on weekends.

Now, I happen to be, maybe as you are, someone who is passionate about CS. So I do actually do it as a hobby and as work. I just don't believe everyone should, and I don't want to make it the norm that you have too, because if that was the case, my doing it as a hobby for myself would now become me doing it cause I have too for employability.

It's also not my only hobby, I found that when it was, it did in fact slowly overwork my mind. I'd slowly start sleeping later, waking earlier, having issues falling asleep because I'd always be thinking about my problems. A few hours before bed, switching to a non thinking hobby has been really nice for me.

I agree with you about the stigma though. I think if anything, I'd like to encourage non-programmers to pick up programming as a hobby. It's a great creative outlet, and the computer is a tool. It can be very rewarding and so much fun. Plus, for many, it could translate into a better career for them.

As a programmer though, I think it's just up to you, but definitely you shouldn't have too.

Just my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, assuming you're early career, I get the idea that you are anxious about your CV and your job security, and you want to build up something of a portfolio that you can show publicly.

Me, I'm mid career, and wish I hadn't focused so much on doing more programming in my off time. Most of the side projects I worked on never really came to any sort of long-term fruition, and I'm not even sure that they were _that_ helpful in my career. What really helped was being able to demonstrate domain expertise, and I built that up by becoming _less_ focused on programming, and spending more of my work time just talking to people and understanding their business.

There are two big problems with just working on raw programming skills: First, if all you are is a programmer, then you're fungible. The only programming skills that aren't particularly fungible are skills in entrenched-but-uncool languages like COBOL and RPG. The cools ones are cheap; anyone who can stick to a MOOC can build up a portfolio of side projects on popular technologies. On the other hand, domain expertise is very difficult to replace. The resources to build it up typically aren't publicly available, so they're less common.

And there are plenty of side projects you can work on that give your brain a break, or at least a change of pace, while still looking good on your CV and opening up job opportunities you might not otherwise have. Lately, for me, it's been learning languages. It's a lot easier to fit into a life, because you can do it while commuting or doing housework. Having a business proficiency can definitely open doors. And, once you get past the beginner stage (which is best undertaken as a solitary pursuit), it's a _great_ social activity.

<comment><USER10> This is great advice _if_ you are early career and anxious about your CV and job security. I don't believe side-project-as-portfolio is the ideal strategy for career building for _most_ people (though it may be for some).

However...

> _you 're early career, I get the idea that you are anxious about your CV and > your job security_

From reading the article, I didn't get this impression about the author at all. I strongly got the impression that the author is mid-career, and that they feel their career has benefitted from side-projects (I still don't necessarily believe this will be the case for most people, but certainly can for some).

What about the article gave you that impression?

Side note: I think outside of career progression, side-projects have many ancillary benefits and are very worthwhile.

<comment><USER11> Thanks, lucideer. OP here. You're correct! I believe that who want to have more opportunities early in their career will benefit from a side project. It can only add value.

And I also agree with mumblemumble, that later on, you might want to focus on some specific skills and make better what you already knows to sell yourself as a specialist, and that's where you can make $$$?

just my 2 cents

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't have side projects. I don't really want one. What I do is satisfy my intellectual curiosity. I've always been very curious how things work. If I see an app with a widget that does something, I will (try to) recreate it. I'll then move on to the next curiosity. I like protocols, so maybe I'll implement a minimalist IRC server. Then move on. I don't fully flesh out these applications. I do the minimum I need to understand and learn and satisfy myself and then move on. I am curious about so many things, I don't have time to have a side project.

Another thing is, I love reading code, so if I see an Open Source project that does something really interesting, I'll read the code. If there's a particularly tricky piece of code, I'll print it out, grab a sharp pencil and go sit on the back porch to trace through it and understand it.

I don't do side projects. I don't have a github account. But I do code a lot. And I do read a lot of code.

<comment><USER13> Would satisfying one's curiosity count as an extracurricular activity on a CV? For example, I love learning about how airplanes work. I spent this weekend reading about Boeing 737 bleed air systems and how they power many things on a jetliner. Sure it's not code, but something interesting.

<comment> non-entity I don't think so, unfortunately. I think that that sort of thing says something (positive) about a person that the traditional hiring pipeline misses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Well first of all, we need to abandon the concept of the 40 hour work week. Very few people are actually working all of those 40 hours and even if they were, it's just a bad way to work for any client or company.

In all likelihood, the people managing you aren't technical and have a very small window into the work you're actually doing. On top of that, even if you can outperform your colleagues by as much as 200% by working more or working "harder", there's no point in doing so because our work world doesn't really understand how to deal with exceptional individuals. You'll just get 15% more pay and some meaningless title for all of that hard work anyway.

So you work up to the point where people tell you "that's amazing", then you go work on side projects. Simple customer management. They're happy, you're happy. No more exchanging hours for dollars, we all get what we want.

Just focus on what matters, both for your own longterm happiness (building skills, scratching an itch, whatever) and for the happiness of your customers (they won't get their project completed if you're burned out and disengaged).

Reject the 40 hours. This isn't a factory and we aren't slaves. It will all be fine.

<comment><USER15> I agree! But shame we have contracts that say stuff like work you do at work is the property of the company, and you need to be at work for 40 hours per week. I'm sure individuals on HN do negotiate, and working remote gives you this freedom probably, but for most of us it doesn't seem realistic.

<comment><USER14> My only advice is to get your finances together and have a giant ball of "FU" money so you can afford to quit situations where you're wasting your time. Software engineers have the luxury of making large sums of money, so it shouldn't take too long to get a few hundred K together. Things start to look much more rosy after that.

Just remember to think like a business person. They're doing that. Why not you?

<comment><USER15> Saving "A few 100k" is one solution, probably for the American FAANG (or equivalent) engineers. But there are other solutions.

Frugality helps - less money is required if you live in a shared house or a couch (you can invest in property at the same time but not live in it).

Having a life partner helps, one of you can have a job at all times, so one of you has the FU card.

Other sources of income. I think coding side projects are hard to make work, but real estate is more doable (but there is more risk and patience required).

Even with none of that, a good CV, interviewing technique, keeping up with the interview puzzles, and living somewhere with plenty of jobs will give you a FU card to your current company (but not the industry).

<comment><USER14> Oh for sure! There are so many different FU cards, money being the obvious one

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> No.

Your free time should be about rest and recovery, not about grinding out even more code.

Even if it looks bad on your CV

<comment><USER17> Why are some people so strongly opposed to others using their free time to better themselves and stretch their minds a bit?

Many of humanities greatest scientific discoveries and works of art were 'side projects'.

It's better than lounging around like a lemon doing nothing with your time.

<comment><USER18> I've noticed a strong negative reaction from some people who have kids. There's a weird kind of expectation from some that because they don't have time to work on side projects (which is fair; kids suck up time like nothing else), that others who don't have kids and do have the time shouldn't be able to derive any kind of professional advantage over them from it.

<comment><USER19> There's more to it than that. It's not just about a professional advantage - it's about company cultures that are toxic toward people with families.

This quote for example: 'I've asked David Wong, working in the cryptocurrency team at Facebook, what would be the best way to be noticed by Facebook? He answered: "Side Projects" and "Blog".'

To many people with kids, that reads: Facebook doesn't want to hire engineers with families, because the things they care about from folks are diametrically opposed, in many cases, to the time required with children.

I absolutely think that if you have the time and flexibility you should use it. But there are (and should be) other ways to stand out to companies or to create value that don't involve side gigs outside of the normal work day.

<comment><USER18> I feel like there's an element of wanting to have and eat ones cake here. Programming isn't so different to playing a music instrument - you become better through a lot of deliberate, sustained practice. like it or not, people who have the time and inclination can jump ahead of others in competence the same way a musician who practices 8 hours a day can.

It's not particularly compatible with having kids, but it makes you a better musician.

I'm all in favour of finding better ways to let programmers who don't have side projects stand out but I don't think that devaluing side projects is the way to do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you've never done a side project, I would definitely recommend the experience. That being said, the people I know who always have to have something software and/or business related on the side are stretched thinner than anyone else I know.

I've gotten the most mileage out of the extracurricular pursuits that have the least to do with programming - usually those around art or sports. When I have an interesting idea for a technical side project I pursue it, but when I was in a phase where I felt obligated to do so, it brought more stress than enjoyment.

</comment><comment><USER21> Alright, I have __many __thoughts on this.

In summary, this article says: "I like side projects! I have done a bunch of them, and here are the reasons why you should do them too:

1\. You can make money

2\. They're a gateway drug to entrepreneurship

3\. You can learn new skills, including business skills

4\. They look good on a resume/when networking

5\. You can learn about yourself

6\. Work with friends/make new ones"

I don't think there is anything _wrong_ with this article, but I think it misses the mark a bit.

In my experience there are 3 reasons to work on a side project:

1\. Learning- picking up a specific skill you didn't have before.

2\. Experience- doing more programming in total (making you more experienced).

3\. Fun- sometimes programming is a fun thing to do!

I think if you don't really hit at least one of those, you shouldn't be doing side projects. On some days I take the even stronger position that unless you are trying to make a career change __or __you really find programming fun, you should not be doing side projects.

Making money can be part of it, but as the author says it can't really be the driving force of a _side project_. If making money is your goal, I would argue that that isn't a side project, it's a small business and should be treated as such.

It's also worth thinking about what value you get out of which parts of side projects. You can hit all those goals _without_ actually finishing and releasing your project. I see a lot of devs not bother starting projects when they hit all 3 reasons, because they don't want to polish their project into a full product.

I don't want to go off too much here, I blog at length about side projects at [https://weeklyproject.club](https://weeklyproject.club) , and I wrote an article recently about this phenomenon at [https://weeklyproject.club/articles/finish/](https://weeklyproject.club/articles/finish/)

</comment><comment><USER22> I've never understood the grind culture. When I'm not at work there are a millions things I'd rather do than more work. I know some people who are always working. I can't. I need down time.

</comment><comment><USER23> I somewhat agree. I've written about this before, but working on AlgoDaily[1] has helped me develop an amazing amount as a software engineer and entrepreneur. I've gotten to work with tech that I don't get to play with at work, learned what really makes a business tick, and have been able to network with many amazing people.

At the same time, there's been days that I've had to step back and reflect on the time spent in front of a computer, when I could've been traveling or partying like many peers.

It also can be a ton of work on top of your regular job.

[1] [https://algodaily.com/lessons/getting-your-first-software- jo...](https://algodaily.com/lessons/getting-your-first-software-job-without- professional-experience#get-experience-via-your-own-projects)

<comment><USER24> Hey, about algodaily, when are you guys planning to add Java?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I already spend 7 to 8 hours a day working on software, the odds that I'll spend a single minute working on anything remotely close to that are close to 0: I have significantly more enjoyable stuff to occupy my time with.

Sure, I find my work to be interesting and engaging but there are extremely few activities that I enjoy doing for over 8 hours.

</comment><comment><USER26> I had been been working for 18 hours a day (for a duration of 1 month) - <USER2> is what happened to me.

1\. Woke up at 4 am - 15 minutes - planning and thinking about the schedule for the rest of the day.

2\. Review the code I wrote previous day (30 mins)(though I was the only one developing this I do PRs :)(iOS mobile app - swift for front end, golang for microflow, docker, k8s and google cloud)

3\. Refactor and add features for the next 2 hours.

4.Glance through NYTimes(liberal left), Fox(republic) RT, South China Morning Post, Global Times(CN), Economic Times(IN) and DW(EU) to understand where world stands.

5 Get ready for office (train 30 mins) - attend the standup - provide and listen updates - fix issues , develop features - (NodeJS & Java)

5\. Thankfully all the office meetings - are scheduled only on Mondays.

6\. 5:30 leave office, get into train and reach home at 7:20 pm (walk from train station to home - 2 km approx. - and take a shower

7\. Play with kids, read stories (and fight with wife :))

8\. Family prayer and got to bed.

9\. On Fridays - have a beer or a glass of wine after prayer.

10\. Saturday & Sunday - take children for extra curricular activities, shopping (mostly groceries and house hold items.

After one month - I couldn't carry on with waking up at 4:00 am - couldn't concentrate at work - getting irritated easily etc. I switched to waking up at 6:00 am.

Side projects are possible - but there is a cost :)

</comment><comment><USER27> More like, "Why I feel like I should have a side project"

</comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Is anyone else working full time and getting a degree part time? I'm a year away from my masters and it's just been grueling, especially given that the government sees no difference in terms of taxes whether my tuition is paid directly by my employer or if they just gave me a $20,000 check every year and I ran it straight to the bursar _on my own accord_ , so I've been screwed for money _and_ time for it seems like as long as I can remember.

I really want to do side projects (I'm getting a degree in machine learning and google colab is free) but I have a job to go to, classwork to do, tests to study for, groceries to shop for and dinner to cook because I can't afford instacart or delivery...and then I read posts like this about the joys of side projects. It's really depressing.

<comment> pickle-wizard I've been considering getting a masters. The thing holding me back, is that I worked full time while getting my bachelors and it was a grueling 9 years. I'm not sure I want to go through that again. Though I do dream of quitting my job and going back to school full time. I think that would be fun. I have the money to do it, but the opportunity cost is just too high.

Though I do spend a couple of hours most weekday mornings learning stuff I want to learn. I get up about 5 spend a couple of hours studying and then head into work. The nice thing about studying on my own, is that I can take a break if I need to. Like right now work is real stressful, so I decided to take a week off studying.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Taking classes full time was much easier. Even with the mental whiplash of subjects and classwork to do, I at least had the freedom to figure out the best way to work my schedule around it. Not so easy when I have to be at my desk at 8am every day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I agree with some of the points from the article, but I also agree with the people saying to spend your free time with your family and on your hobbies.

So I have always had side projects that combine them. I'll write tools that help my family do something together. It used to be mapping tools to help us plan outdoor exploring in the mountains and deserts. Then it was conversion programs to turn photos into craft patterns. Most of those are offline now, too, I just left up a basic cross-stitch one. I turned the others off for the same reason I stopped the mapping tools -- similar tools were popping up everywhere, so I stopped putting my time into it. Now my kids are getting into writing, and I am working on a writing tool that can help them organize their thoughts... which will probably get seen and copied into more robust tools, and then I can turn it off.

These projects always go the same way -- they are something cool to help my family, they let me practice new things, I learn more, and some day people with more time surpass my idea with a real product.

I really have no problem with this cycle. It seems like everyone involved gets something out of it. And I'm way too old to play the game of every new idea having to have a goal of becoming a startup.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm currently full-time on my side project as I'm done with graduating, tired from searching for the right job (it has been months) and I just need to do some actual coding, to get it out my system or something.

It is a code vacation, because when job hunting, I'm not coding that much.

I'll try to be brief:

1\. I am passionate about digital creation again

What I find really cool is that learning to program has been worth it. It has taken one bachelor and 2 masters, but it has been worth it. Studying computer science has been worth it. I'm capable of deep diving if I have to, and otherwise just stay on a web stack flying on a high level zipping code together by gluing npm packages but creating my own ones if I have to.

2\. Passion has downsides

I'm seeing my friends less, I'm seeing my girlfriend less. I feel that everyone around me tolerates my behavior, but I don't suspect they like it too much as I'm thinking 24/7 about this thing. It also makes me a bit mentally absent when I'm with them. The issue is, I can't help it. IMO, it's a good lesson on how passion is overrated as the downsides of pure passion are not being discussed. My sleep (and code quality) is terrible as I'm too excited to get up again, and the problem is: I can sustain this a lot longer than I thought I could.

3\. It allows me to do some much needed self exploration

Why do I like this? Why am I now procrastinating on creating the backend but am neck deep in learning how to rearchitect the backend to a p2p architecture (easy: because p2p web apps are more unusual ;-) ). I'm getting a lot of questions and answers that I need.

4\. It feels like a game

I think the reason it feels like a game is because I have my own agency. I get to decide to solve a problem that I think is worth solving for whatever reason. That type of agency is quite common in games: you're in a big world with tons of quests and you can decide what to do (even abandon the whole quest line!).

\---

All in all: doing your own side project on a full-time basis is a much needed and interesting exploration for me. For 9 years people told me what I should do. It's interesting to see what I do when I tell myself what to do. It's a much needed break from just doing what other people want.

</comment><comment><USER30> On this note, I'm setting up an OSS side project (finally going public after a year+ of internal revisions) for many of the reasons cited in this project. It's something I care about.

With that said, part of my plan is to have a hosted version of the application - at least until the moderation of content makes me regret it, hah. However, I am concerned about the overhead of both writing and maintaining a complex FOSS project, but also handling [dev]ops of the project.

I know enough ops to be dangerous, but not much beyond that. I also know enough to know how little I know. Due to budget constraints, I will likely be hosting this on a very low cost server and exploiting CDN caching/etc very, very heavily - but I do imagine I'll need a cheap VPS. Ie, I don't think I can exploit a fully managed Function as a Service architecture; I think I'll be managing a VPS.

So for a low budget project with minimal ops experience, how can I ensure security and safety? What path to growth can I walk, without consuming my time trying to become an expert in [dev]ops?

</comment><comment> non-entity I've never been able to get into side projects, but I have recently taken up contributing to open source projects. It was accidental, but I ended up making my first ever real contribution to an open source project after patching a driver to work with some hardware I was too lazy / cheap to replace. I'm in the process of moving, but I think afterwards I'm going to ramp up my work because that was the first time I generally enjoyed programming in years and it could also have a good impact on my career. I don't have any real friends or family right now so I have plenty of free time.

</comment><comment><USER31> I feel switching two words around in the article title brings things into better focus:

Why Should You Have A Side Project?

Ask yourself:

\- What do you want out of this side project? Money? Fame? Learning?

\- How would you define success for this side project?

\- What will you do if it succeeds? (unlikely)

\- What will you do if it fails? (likely)

You need to chart a rough path. Creating something open source and aiming for popularity and notoriety is much different than hoping to make enough money to quit your day job from your side project. You end up in two vastly different places if you succeed. If you fail, you end up in the same place. Plan and be ok with both end results.

</comment><comment><USER32> Doing some side projects for a while. Nothing else made me happier and more fulfilling then this. It makes you grow and challenge yourself and opens your eyes to what you can do or be without your employer.

</comment><comment><USER33> Might as well title it "Why there should be more hours in the day"

</comment><comment> ainar-g A very much related article, which can even be considered a response to the articles like OP of sorts, is "I Can't Do Anything for Fun Anymore"[1][2] by Dave Bennett. I seriously recommend reading it.

[1] [https://www.bennettnotes.com/post/making-money-out-of- every-...](https://www.bennettnotes.com/post/making-money-out-of-every-hobby/)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19727156](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19727156)

</comment><comment><USER34> If you read the "making money" numbers as how much you could make from a side project, remember that the values appear to be _revenue_ and not profit.

</comment><comment><USER35> I have strong feelings about the "making money" reason.

As much as I do like 2-3,000 USD extra in my pocket every year, investing the time directly into getting better skills and better-paid jobs trumps such amounts even if you get just 1% more every year.

<comment><USER36> An extra £200 a month before tax -and how much effort doe that require.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> You should ask yourself, does side project bring joy? If it does not, must go out.

</comment><comment><USER38> [random internet advice]

Don't should on yourself.

Consider the source when should on .

</comment><comment><USER39> Why you should have a side project? So you don't waste all your off-time reading HackerNews comments, that's why...

</comment><comment><USER40> Ah all these comments.

I pity those who are in this industry only for money :(

It sounds so miserable not to get any joy from your profession . What side project can we talk about if you can't wait to get out of the office, to run away from the code to literally do ANYTHING except coding.

What creativity and progress can we talk about when we have a bunch of miserable oompa loompas.

<comment><USER41> I get joy from coding and five years in, my programming job is far and away the best job I've ever had and the most I've ever been paid.

That being said, I also realize that there's more to life than writing code. I spend all day at work writing code. The last thing I want to do is go home and write more code. There's an entire world out there that I won't see any of it if I stay inside locked to my computer 24/7.

Why does everyone HAVE to have a side project?

<comment><USER40> You are ok with your job but there is no passion. That's what I'm talking about.

You don't have to have a side project.

Passion is so rare these days, isn't it?

<comment><USER42> Passion fades. How long have you been professionally programming?

<comment><USER40> Not too long (~9years), and getting used to the absence of passion. Unfortunately. I disagree that passion (if you have one) fades in this industry. There is so much going on! All the time! It touches every domain you can think of! Passion here is rare, but it never fades, its not marriage. You are free to create, and to explore, and to mentor, and to contribute! It's certainly never boring. And oh boy those passionate discussions, even something as simple as tabs vs spaces, can be so much fun!

Picture marriage. But not an ordinary marriage, an extraordinary one! Imagine marriage where you are married to all attractive men in the universe, and you are free to experiment, and have full access to every single one of them! That's how software development works for me.

Eh, I should probably cut a bit on exclamation marks, but I can't, I'm passionate!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> www.Levels.fyi started out as a side project! One benefit of starting out as a side project is it allowed us the flexibility and freedom to focus on user features without needing to worry about revenue.

</comment><comment><USER44> Wow I love the map on citymayor. What did you use to make it?

<comment><USER11> Thanks! it was done with mapbox :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I actually count much of my hobbies as 'side projects' as well even though almost none of them include actual programming. It's something I do which isn't work. And most of them do involve some other kind of skill and labour. And also almost none of them get me any money, and that also usually isn't a main motivator for me. tldr; I sort of agree with the general sentiment here, but feel the article is written a bit too much from personal experience without much more general reflection on the topic and focussing only on programming and not treating other things as side project. Or maybe that's the definition of side project, not sure :)</comment>


Machine learning is gradually changing modern agricultural practices - <AUTHOR> http://precisionagricultu.re/how-machine-learning-is-gradually-changing-modern-agricultural-practices/ <comment><USER2> What am I worried about here is that ML would eliminate some hidden factors allowing survival of biosystems in its goal to increase yields. Nowadays there might be some inefficiency with side effects allowing survival of required species; with more efficient models wrt profit those effects might disappear, causing hard-to-explain issues. An example from the past was when mountainous national parks banned certain animals from feeding on grass within park boundaries, leading to disappearance of rare flowers that needed trimmed grass surroundings to survive.

</comment><comment><USER3> The headline is amusingly overly modest. Statistics and science have changed agricultural practices in extreme ways many times. As have simple economics. Machine learning doing the same shouldn't be a surprise, since it should just be seen as a continuation of those practices.

<comment><USER4> One could also say that agriculture changed machine learning via RA Fischer, pioneer of modern statistics - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher#Rothamsted_Exper...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher#Rothamsted_Experimental_Station,_1919-1933)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article is a very light without any concrete examples. (edited typos)

This field is lot more about hardware and software automation, where AI can and already has a big role.

The ML part, frankly, is nothing new. With the significant exception that more people are doing it, including groups of people who would traditionally not do it, such as farmers and technologists. It used to be mostly academics and large companies with research teams.

</comment><comment><USER6> I wanna see "modern agricultural science" pushing the boundaries of ecology, modelling complex, diverse ecosystems with a goal of cultivating them in economically viable ways!

I don't think "machine learning" is the right tool for the job though.</comment>