Announcing Online MS in Computer Science in Collaboration with Georgia Tech - <AUTHOR> http://blog.udacity.com/2013/05/sebastian-thrun-announcing-online.html <comment><USER2> <http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/faq/>

> How much does the degree program cost? We're not yet ready to announce a > specific program cost, but the plan is to offer the Georgia Tech OMS CS for > a total cost of under $7,000—a fraction of the cost of Georgia Tech's on- > campus program and even less than that of comparable private universities.

> The total workload is the same as the residential program; the weekly or > hourly workload depends on how quickly students wish to complete the > program.

This is _revolutionary_.

Not only is it much cheaper, the incentives are now back in alignment. I know plenty of people that could graduate much faster and get on with their lives - The schools on the other hand, want them to stay longer (and thus pay more).

This removes the nickel and dime element and all kinds of backwards tedium.

<comment><USER3> Personal anecdote: I just finished an engineering MS from NC State via their Engineering Online ( <http://engineeringonline.ncsu.edu>) program. The per-3hr-course cost for EOL courses is roughly $900. For the on campus version of the same thing, it's about $2200. For a 27 credit hour program, that came out to about $8k, which I thought was entirely reasonable given I [as a student local to the school] always had the option of taking advantage of campus facilities/options (libraries/labs, office hours, study groups, etc), too. An added perk was -- as the GT FAQ notes -- the ability to work at my leisure. With a full time job and two toddlers, it took me almost four years to complete the program, but I did and it was a fantastic experience.

<edit> To address a question below about GT's program, NC State's is practically equivalent to their campus-based stuff. You apply, and are admitted, following exactly the same process as everyone else. After admission, you follow the same rules and processes as everyone else. The one exception I've found -- besides making it easier to study part time and draw out the total duration -- is that professors are usually much more lenient with deadlines for their online students. They know a large percentage of online students are doing it that way because they're working full time (or are deployed military, or any of a plethora of other situations), and they offer a lot of leeway. This helped me & my peers quite a lot.

<comment><USER4> _To address a question below about GT's program, NC State's is practically equivalent to their campus-based stuff._

Out of curiosity, how does this work with project-based courses where the students design their own projects? Or do those not exist?

At least in the kinds of CS masters projects I'm familiar with, they tend to require a lot of one-on-one meeting time, which seems like it would be hard to scale up. It's certainly possible to do online, so online vs. physical isn't really an issue. But if one of the goals of offering these programs online is also to massively increase student:teacher ratio (as GT seems to be indicating), that seems like it would present a problem for individualized projects.

A typical arrangement is that students propose a project, possibly based on some suggestions from the professor. In the ideal case it intersects students' interests with something active going on in the research world or even the professor's lab, so the students and professor might even co-write a conference paper at the end of the course (for the best projects). They meet with the professor a few times to refine the project idea and scope so it's appropriate for the course, likely to be doable, etc. Then they meet a few more times during the project to ensure they're on track, agree on what parts could be cut if time doesn't allow them to be completed as originally envisioned, etc. Finally they do an oral, conference-style presentation of their work/results, and then hand in a report.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Gt alum here. Gt is a great school, but who says that is a forecast of how well an online class will be?

Online classes have been around for about a decade now. But i cant see how taking a class online from Georgia Tech aint gonna be different than taking an online class from another university.

The benefits of getting a CS degree at a university is gaining that physical connection with the professors. There isn't going to be a single thing these online classes will have that you wouldn't be able to find online yourself or at another online course at another institution.

But what you miss is the personal interaction with the professors and students - something you can't get from an online chat room. Especially at Masters level - where your interaction with professors is much closer.

This is a step in the wrong direction. If this was for a BS, I could understand. Especially because it gives access to those who don't have access to that education. But the real benefit of higher education is the personal connections IMO. There isn't really any additional "knowledge" CS pieces that is taught at MIT and not at a normal university. what separates universities is those personal connections with the faculty and the community.

At GT (I received a BS in Computational Media), the real value came from the people - individual connections that help pave your way through career choices and research topics.

I mean come on, what's next? PhD in CS with 3000 other students? Defending your thesis to a random professor thousands of miles away who you only have email contact?

<comment><USER6> > Gt alum here. Gt is a great school, but who says that is a forecast of how > well an online class will be?

Also GT alum here... GT is a great school, but frankly the online classes couldn't be worse than the in real life classes. I bet they'll even be taught by professors, rather than severely English-challenged TA's...

<comment><USER7> I took a lot of grad classes (in CS and ECE). Not one was taught by a TA. Did you take _grad_ classes, or were you and undergrad?

<comment><USER6> I was an undergrad. The couple of grad classes I took were indeed taught by an English-speaking professor, but the undergraduate classes were awful and left a bad taste in my mouth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The fact that they qualify it as an "online master of science" makes it significantly less attractive. It implies they're not willing to put their name & reputation behind its equivalency (in terms of rigor & qualifications of outgoing students) to an offline degree.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I find that a little wishy-washy, too. I guess that's part of the buying decision you have to make -- are you willing to risk the lesser cachet for the convenience and affordability?

I'd do it in a second, but then I'm probably the target audience (other than not having completed my BS). I'm almost 40 years old, with a wife and child, and the flexibility is crucial to me. This isn't an alternative to a traditional MS program; the traditional MS just isn't even an option for me. I see it as a way to get credit for the MOOC work I'm already doing for fun and fulfillment.

<comment><USER9> +1 to your points except the one about the "Online" in OMS being wishy-washy. I propose that this was not just a way to appease administrators, but is a pilot program that other institutions will be closely observing.

If institutions can persuade students to accept an Oxx designation (online prefix), then administrations are modelling that they can not only increase revenues based on free MOOC numbers, but simultaneously protect on-campus degree branding.

I am guessing that many online/distance-learning degrees are conferred without making it clear that the degree was earned in this way. Although this is great for students, I'm sure this causes angst in administrations for fear of brand dilution and obvious revenue threats.

The O-prefix would be a great experiment to see if it sticks. As rsanders said, this _really_ appeals to a certain demographic (older, family/multiple jobs, flexibility, striking distance of employee tuition assistance programs, etc). I am part of that demographic and am sorely tempted to sign up.

One unintended benefit of reducing the cost of such degrees is that it will become (much?) more common for people to hold multiple graduate degrees, which may help offset the perceived 'weakness' of the O- designation.

<comment><USER10> > I am guessing that many online/distance-learning degrees are conferred > without making it clear that the degree was earned in this way. Although > this is great for students, I'm sure this causes angst in administrations > for fear of brand dilution and obvious revenue threats.

It also opens opportunities for smaller universities with decent programs to make a dent. My university recently did entirely away with the on-campus format for the degree I received since most students signed up for the online format (I did). My diploma does not say "Online" at all.

If the quality of instruction and coursework is alleged to be equivalent, why not put the full standing of the University's name behind it? To me, adding the caveat of "online" makes it seem like the school is admitting in advance that the degree isn't equivalent to "not-online" MSc degrees.

I wonder if, since this is accredited, the body that certifies Georgia Tech's offerings wouldn't agree to do it without an "online" tag. Though, if that were the case, I wonder how my university was able to change its MSc offering (not Computer Science, though) to entirely-online without adding that word since both GATech and my college are covered by the same body.

<comment><USER9> >>If the quality of instruction and coursework is alleged to be equivalent, why not put the full standing of the University's name behind it?

The quality of the lecture instruction and coursework is alleged to be equivalent, but maybe they are now trying to differentiate on other dimensions such as physical access to on-campus facilities, easier/more direct access to professors or more implied individual attention.

>>To me, adding the caveat of "online" makes it seem like the school is admitting in advance that the degree isn't equivalent to "not-online" MSc degrees.

That's exactly what they're stating in no uncertain terms -- the two degrees are not equal. The preference for students and smaller universities is to go with an undifferentiated designation, but GT is drawing a line in the sand with this specific online offering. Note that GT offers other distance- learning masters degrees without differentiation, but at much higher cost.

The reduced cost is their justification for the O- prefix.

>> I wonder how my university was able to change its MSc offering (not Computer Science, though) to entirely-online without adding that word since both GATech and my college are covered by the same body.

This is why I suggested that the O- prefix was a deliberate choice that other major universities will push to protect the high fees of on-campus degrees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What is AT&T allegedly bringing to the table? Are we assuming that there are people who want to work there, who will view this certification as advancing that goal, is that it?

I read the <http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/faq/> , and found only this hint:

 _Why is AT &T the corporate collaborator for this initiative?

As a premier global communications company and a champion for innovation in education, AT&T will provide technology access, connectivity and products at inception, as well as evolving service and platform support. The company will serve on an advisory board and, where appropriate, offer corporate projects for credit, be a source from which Georgia Tech draws curriculum content and guest instructors and offer internship opportunities to select students. AT&T will tap into the program to train its own employees and will recruit graduates._

Technology access, connectivity, service and platform support? Aren't those basically solved problems for Udacity?

Advisory board? Does GaTech have corporate sponsorship on the advisory board of their other Master's programs, setting curriculum? (Maybe they should, maybe they shouldn't, but I doubt they think they need to.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the real reason you have AT&T involved is that without that sort of influence, this degree program wouldn't have happened until years later. Universities, and boards of regents, are deeply conservative, risk-averse institutions in some ways. There's also a lot of cost to startup a program like this, and public universities aren't exactly rolling in money right now.

Beyond that, a lot of companies have some kind of tuition assistance for graduate degrees, and a lot of companies are having trouble finding skilled talent to begin with. So it's a way to save money and improve recruiting.

The business models of companies like Udacity and Coursera are probably going to rely heavily on the hunger of companies the size of AT&T, Google, etc. for a steady supply of trained workers. Somebody's got to pay the bills and make the VCs rich.

I like to think of this as shifting part of the cost of the education from the individual to the company that's ultimately benefitting from it. Of course, one might worry about some unspecified negative influence from the corporate sponsors, but in this incredibly transparent educational environment, such influences would be pretty obvious and self-defeating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This all sounds really great and is definitely a step into the direction to make higher education more accessible - a few side notes (for those getting too excited)

(1) There have been quite a few online learning (aka distance learning) degree courses from reputable universities for some time. For MSc / Master degrees until recently they all required at least some in-person workshops (normally 1 week long - for a MSc in the UK afak 6-8 sometimes 12 weeks over 2 years). These workshops were there for the benefit of the students (networking, group work / access to profs in person, socializing, campus feeling etc.) and various other requirements (e.g. degree requirements). The outcome of these degree programs was normally the _same degree_ that you would have received for taking all courses on campus.

(2) All universities that have offered online degrees without in-person workshops in the past differentiate / protect their higher priced and more strongly access-limited on-campus degrees by providing _different degrees_ \- GaTech does the same here - after successfully completing this course you will receive an _OMS_ in CS from GaTech not a _MS_ in CS from GaTech. It is to be seen if this will be received differently in the industry (as this was with such degrees in the past) or we finally are getting to a change here.

(3) The course will start Fall 2014. I would be surprised if EdX and/or Coursera will not soon announce something similar.

(4) From the FaQ it looks like ATT is sponsoring the course creation etc. with US$2M.

<comment><USER13> University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign had an online Master's in CS as far back as 2001, I believe you had to drive down to campus for tests, though

<comment><AUTHOR> Georgia Tech already has a distance learning MS in CSE, but not a general MS CS. And I believe the cost is rather higher than this.

<http://www.cseprograms.gatech.edu/distancelearning>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think Georgia Tech is just the right kind of partner for something like this. Solid name recognition to give credibility to the degree, but not one that's so steeped in exclusivity that it might be compromised by association with the online format. And the pricing, $7,000, is spot-on for what this offers.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm surprised they started with a masters, but I guess it makes sense. They are only targeting people who've already gone through an accredited degree program. Makes the program more likely to be taken seriously.

Udacity already issues credit for a fewer lower level classes via SJSU. I wonder how soon the gap will be closed and a whole online degree available.

<comment><USER15> I think you'll be surprised about what degrees are actually "accredited" and what ones are not. For example, UCSD, Princeton and Cal Tech do not have ABET accredited C{S,E} degrees.

<comment><USER16> Why would I care about ABET accreditation for a CS program? It's not like CS is a regulated field that requires a national standard. That would be like complaining that a schools History department isn't accredited.

For things like medicine, professional engineering, legal, etc... I care that _those_ degrees are from accredited programs, but not CS. What I do care about is that the school itself is accredited and legally allowed to confer degrees.

For what it's worth: CalTech does have ABET accredited programs in Chemical, Mechanical, and Electrical engineering. So, they must not feel that ABET accreditation offers much for a CS program.

<comment><USER15> I misread the FAQ, it's the institution and not the degree that they care is accredited.

> Why would I care about ABET accreditation for a CS program? I'm not sure why > someone would care (some people do though). ABET does not offer > accreditation to history departments (now there's a controversial idea). I > found the fact that these institutions do not have them as an interesting > curiosity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a huge step in the right direction, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm disappointed about the BS in CS requirement. Plenty of people with BS degrees in other technical fields probably could pass a fair placement/entry examination given the chance.

<comment><USER18> Apparently you can try to apply with another kind of BS : "Formal admission into the OMS CS program will require a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from an accredited institution, or a related Bachelor of Science degree with a possible need to take and pass remedial courses"

<comment><USER19> I wonder if you can get in with just a BA.

<comment><USER20> I am starting an MS in CS program in the fall (not at GT) and I just have a BA. They let me in, however I have to take a full academic year of remedial courses first[1]. I would imagine they will do something like that.

[1]Calculus 1 and 2, Intro to Programming, Data Structures, Foundations of CS, Intro to Computer Systems, Intro to Computer Organization, Algorithms and Data Structures, Structures of Programming Languages, Introduction to Finite Automata, Introduction to Operating Systems.

P.S. Anybody know where I can learn any of the above online cheap or free? If I learn it elsewhere I can test out of the classes.

<comment><USER21> try <http://class-central.com>

<comment><USER22> Thanks, great link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The cost of a similar master's degree at a university like Georgia Tech can run $40,000.

It's not quite the same thing -- watch the video by Charles Isbell on the GT site to hear their differentiation between the "on campus" and online degrees. But it's an amazing value for people who can learn effectively in a MOOC environment and aren't focused on the path into research and academia.

The video is also at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zihmiLx3Xlk>.

[edit: added link to video]

<comment><USER23> [http://www.bursar.gatech.edu/student/tuition/Fall_2013/Fall1...](http://www.bursar.gatech.edu/student/tuition/Fall_2013/Fall13-all_fees.pdf)

looks more like 60K depending on your in state/out of state status

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> On one hand, I think it's ridiculously awesome that Tech's doing this. Our CoC department is incredibly innovative, and one of the only administrative departments that recognize the need for innovation.

However, I wonder if this would devalue a degree from Georgia Tech. You'd obviously have a lot more people taking the course than you would if it wasn't an MOOC. Thoughts?

<comment><USER25> Same here, I think it's a really easy way to devalue their degree unfortunately.

A Bachelor's would be easier to accept, but a Master's? I don't think people are ready for that yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the Masters degree is an excellent place to start. MOOC-style education requires more of the student than traditional teaching formats. A lot of people don't have the necessary skills leaving high school, but they are likely to have developed them during the course of an undergraduate degree.

<comment><USER26> +1 This mirrors my thoughts exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> That Udacity is behind this initiative makes this much, much more exciting to me (I'm not big on the whole MOOC business, but Udacity is different; it's the Khan Academy of MOOCs). I've found them to hold themselves to a very high standard, and as someone who's been right in the middle of education-based experiments gone wrong, this makes me feel a lot more optimistic about this project.

Still, I'd recommend people at least let it run for a full one or two years before giving it a shot. The second mouse gets the cheese and all that.

</comment><comment><USER28> As an undergraduate georgia tech cs student. I wish this was for undergrad degrees also. At least I will be able to get a cheap masters degree.

<comment><USER6> As a former undergraduate Georgia Tech student, I really would've appreciated the opportunity to do my degree in this format. At the time I was faced with the choice of dropping out and diving into my job at a startup full-time, or staying in school and working only during the summers and losing the ability to take a really important role in the company. The ability to keep working on my degree online might have changed how I approached the choice.

<comment><USER28> Honestly, while it sucks that I can't take advantage of what will probably happen in the future (undergrad degrees in this format). I can't say i'm not proud to be going there after hearing about this. I'm happy that this will be an option for our future. Hopefully it's successful and affects all areas of study.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is a great development. I'm proud of my alma mater for doing this, and I think Georgia Tech is just the right institution to pull it off (in partnership with Udacity, of course).

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm so happy to see this - it's a sign of progress of the education system, and it gives me so much relief to see that _someone gets it_ at the top of the education totem pole. I discussed this with a master's degree student a few years ago, because the cost (especially for computer science, no labs) seemed too low to ignore. I will sign up for this as soon as possible.

Also, having a master's in Comp Sci will really help me have a shot for all these software eng. positions I keep applying to as a chemical engineer.

Can anyone tell me how Georgia Tech ranks/is thought of for Computer Science? I know the article says "among the best", but I would rather ask HN.

<comment><USER31> I too am happy about this. I received my BS in chemical engineering from Georgia Tech last year. I had a few friends in CS, and I can say the program is really top-notch and up-to-date. I really like chemical engineering, but I also really like CS, so maybe after graduate school I'll sign up for this program.

By the way, how is applying for software engineering positions as a chem eng. working out for you? I'm getting my PhD in chem eng. now from UT, and I am trying to find a job that when I graduate combines my love for both fields.

<comment><USER30> Heh, about as expected. I can get to the final interview no problem, but I always fail when they ask the "basic" technical questions, such as "How does a garbage collector work?" and "How would you populate a binary tree?". My one formal class of C wasn't enough to cover those topics.

However, I am enrolled in App Academy, so I can start doing web dev. My advice is to show you've taken at least an Algorithms/Data Structures course, that plus the skills you've picked up from programming on the side should be enough to get a junior dev position.

In terms of a job that combines both fields...the closest thing I know to a software person in ChemE is an Aspen Troubleshooter for Exxon. Personally, I want to do advanced controls and modeling/simulation. Can I shoot you an email? I might have a lead for you with Tesla.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > We anticipate opening enrollment for matriculation during Fall 2014

My heart sank a little, I have been looking for something like this forever and was planning on applying today after I read the press release.

I joined the mailing list and may even contact the admissions office for the B&M College of Computing to see if there are any pilot programs I could apply to. I am currently in Tokyo for work and finding a decent place online to continue my education in computer science has been difficult. Just set aside $7,000 in a new checking account for the associated fees.

This is the most exciting thing I have seen on HN in a while, awesome time to be a Computer Scientist!

</comment><comment><USER33> From <http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/faq/>

> How will you guarantee academic honesty?

> All exams are proctored using national proctoring standards. We have access > to 4,500 physical proctoring facilities and are working with online > proctoring institutions.

Does this mean it won't be available outside the US ("national proctoring standards")?

Or does this mean appearing at prometric-style centers for the tests? I for one do not love taking tests in the alien environment of such centers (especially computer-science related tests), from my experience with various certifications.

</comment><comment><USER34> It's actually a dark day:

1) Until now, the majority of University-affiliated MOOCs have been free. This just changed.

2) I find it immensely frustrating that as CS people, we are lowering the bar for what it means to have a Masters degree in our field.

I'd be happy with this sort of activity if it was being done in all other fields uniformly and/or we had unions representing CS workers. Unions, in principal aren't bad ... they are possibly the only way to protect older workers for example. I used to love the CS field because it always felt like a truly meritocracy. As I get older, I realize it is not.

Let me make a third, controversial, and somewhat ungrounded statement:

3) MOOCs will kill CS research. Already CS research is in deep trouble. Exceedingly few private companies fund basic CS research. Academia was the last haven (if you can call it a haven - it was sad seeing the line of professors quitting their jobs to work for Google, and getting a pay raise and increase in respect for it). Govts exceedingly don't want to pay for basic research these days. Undergrad teaching used to be the way academics supported themselves. This is going the way of the dodo. But we are improving the lot of the CS undergrad you say! True .. but tell me what the poor grad student (who actually wants to get a PhD with the romantic notion of advancing the state of the art) going to do to support him/herself financially?

<comment><AUTHOR> First off, the MOOCs associated with this degree will still be free. The _degree_ is not. The change here is that a) an entire MS worth of course material (and the systems to support it) from a respected institution are being created, b) the actual (O)MS degree just became a great deal less expensive.

It remains to be seen whether this lowers the bar or merely opens up more opportunities. I don't think education is a zero sum game. And while there may be a glut of PhDs, there is a shortage of employees with the advanced knowledge and skills in demand now. That's why e.g. AT&T is pushing this program.

While the union issue and age discrimination are interesting and important topics, CS graduates don't have a lot to complain about economically. The field has maintained high employment and excellent compensation during recent times when many other professions suffered greatly. Now, at 40 I don't expect to get funded by Y Combinator because I've almost certainly suffered crippling age-related innovation dementia, but there are plenty of employers that don't think that way.

There have been several articles posted here about the glut of PhDs versus available faculty positions. And actual instruction is a pretty small part of what full professors are expected to do. If you aren't pulling in research grants, your career is on a weak trajectory. So the problem was already there, and I don't think this seriously affects it one way or the other.

One might hope that making education available and practical to many more people at much lower costs might actually help advance the field, both within and without the ivory tower.

<comment><USER34> You're right that many things about this experiment remain to be seen. You make some very good, optimistic arguments and I hope we get to that future. I fear we won't

I absolutely agree that education is not a zero sum game. I actually find it sad that most education has become about job training or making money. Whatever happened to curiosity and knowledge for its own sake? But let me not get into that debate. Degrees and credentialing might be zero-sum, however.

< actual instruction is a pretty small part of what full professors are expected to do.

Similarly, the majority of what students pay in tuition goes towards anything other than the salaries and funding of professors. Also, there is a big difference between top-10 schools which run based on a lot of grant money and smaller teaching institutions.

Look, I think I'm on the losing side of the wider argument. I am all for free access to knowledge. I'm just pointing out that we are likely shooting ourselves in the foot in the long-term.

< One might hope that making education available and practical to many more people at much lower costs might actually help advance the field, both within and without the ivory tower.

This is the best sentence in your response (upvoted you btw). I really hope so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is truly revolutionary. I can't wait for this show to get on the road. The FAQs don't mention a requirement of a GRE or other standardized exam for formal admission. Does anyone know if that is likely to change in future (I hope not)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Apparently the GRE will not be a requirement. From [http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/14/georgia- tech-a...](http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/14/georgia-tech-and- udacity-roll-out-massive-new-low-cost-degree-program):

> The second type of student will be "prospective degree-seeking" students who > will be admitted to the program tentatively because they will not have to > take the GRE as other applicants do. If they do well in two core classes, > Georgia Tech will put them on the degree track. The university expects to > enroll 2,000 such students in the next three years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm taking an "online" (distance learning, really) MSc in software engineering here in the UK and it'll cost about $11000 or so all in, so this is especially great value given it's the US.

<comment><USER37> What school are you going through if you don't mind me asking.

Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Wow! As a Georgia Tech alumni with a MS from the College of Computing, I approve of this development!

</comment><comment><USER39> This is a great start, but it seems to me that in the current environment (at least in the US) an MS CS is pretty redundant for students who already have a BS CS. Traditionally the MS CS has been more popular with prospective software engineers who lack a formal CS credential. Let's see how flexible Georgia Tech is on its admissions requirement of a "related Bachelor of Science degree."

I expect this program will be a big hit with non-US students who want a US credential.

</comment><comment><USER40> This is interesting, a lot to ponder. Will $7000 seem reasonable once hordes of graduates hit the market and commoditize the profession?

Or is CS a good fit for only a limited number of people, regardless of price?

It's fascinating that this field, which is difficult because it requires precision, lends itself so practically to automatic grading online.

As exciting as MOOCs are, will we be bound to use them in what's left of our free time just to keep up?

</comment><comment><USER41> As an undergraduate student, this makes me wonder if I should just hold off on getting a B.S. entirely until I can do it through Udacity.

</comment><comment><USER42> I take it this degree will be accredited by the same body that administers Georgia Tech. Has anyone heard otherwise?

<comment><USER43> From the FAQ: This program has been approved at every relevant level of the University System of Georgia, up to and including the Board of Regents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> "Do applicants need to take the GRE? No." This is just great.

</comment><comment><USER45> Does anyone know of decent online BS CS programs?

<comment><USER22> I've been long for a long time, and have yet to find anything. I really hope Udacity/another MOOC offers a BS in CS at some point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I like this development. I went to GT for both bachelors and Masters but with BME and ECE, respectively. However, I am doing web development at a startup. I wonder how this OMS course would impact me and others in similar situations.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm going to apply as soon as they open the gates. I've been "attending" a different, more average, online MS in Computer Science but find the thought of imminently affordable tuition and Georgia Tech quality very appealing.

<comment><USER32> what program are you currently in?

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> "At present, around 160,000 master's degrees are bestowed in the United States every year in computer science and related subject disciplines"

Computer science is 7,426, so what are the other 152,574 degrees in?

<comment><USER47> Humanities? Now THOSE degrees are a waste of money.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wish I'd had this article to post instead. It has some detailed information about the cost of a traditional MS in CS (the online version is "one sixth the cost"), revenue share with Udacity, admission requirements, and a lot more.

      http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/14/georgia-tech-and-udacity-roll-out-massive-new-low-cost-degree-program

</comment><comment><USER49> Awesome.

Did anyone else wonder how much it would cost to live on beaches of South-East Asia or some other cheap and sunny locale while doing this?

</comment><comment><USER50> I have a BBA, and would have hoped the requirements for the Masters course would have at least offered some way to let other majors apply. Limiting it to only BS majors will limit the participation of a large group of their current users.

I guess the next thing they need to add is a undergrad in CS or something else to help bridge the gap.

<comment><USER22> We're in similar situations - I have a BA but would love to do a CS undergrad degree online. Most of the community college/online programs out there consist of IT courses with a few CS courses mixed in. Which is no where near the curriculum of a traditional CS program.

I really hope that someone offers an undergraduate CS degree online at some point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> How would this be valued by the Employers?

</comment><comment><USER52> The following is the current admissions requirements from GT for there MSCS. I wonder how well this is going to translate for the OMS.

<http://www.cc.gatech.edu/future/masters/mscs/admissions>

</comment><comment><USER53> I'm so very happy about this. But I'm still wondering why they decided to launch a masters course as opposed to bachelor? And I hope they provide an option for people without bachelor degree take this course (perhaps with entrance test of some kind?).

</comment><comment><USER54> The signs are telling me I should cash out my bitcoins and get an online MSCS!

</comment><comment><USER55> This would be more useful to US students than outside students. Although we can get high quality education, in the end people need jobs, may be high paying jobs and H1B is still big hurdle !

</comment><comment><USER56> From the PR announcement: "Initial enrollment will be limited to a few hundred students recruited from AT&T and Georgia Tech corporate affiliates."

</comment><comment><USER57> I would only be interested in this if I knew how an MS would improve my income, and I don't see how it would.

</comment><comment><USER58> I want to know if they allow transfer of graduate courses/units taken at another university (hopefully yes).

</comment><comment><USER59> Where do you see the price $7000?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you chase the links you end up on the Georgia Tech site about it: <http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/faq>.

      We're not yet ready to announce a specific program cost,
      but the plan is to offer the Georgia Tech OMS CS for a
      total cost of under $7,000—a fraction of the cost of
      Georgia Tech's on-campus program and even less than that
      of comparable private universities.

All the content will be free to everybody, but you have to apply to Georgia Tech and pay if you want the actual degree.

You also have to have a Bachelor's degree, which is a disappointment for me. I left college before completing my BS in CS, and I'd love to be in this program, but I wouldn't be admitted.

[disclosure: my wife works in the Georgia Tech Professional Education group, which is how I heard about this]

<comment><USER60> Agreed - this is not really "Massively Open" IMO, because it still requires a bachelor's in CS for admission. They do hint at it, but hopefully they will allow an option B for admission.

That would somewhat validate their stated goal of increasing STEM education.

<comment><AUTHOR> The course materials and participation are MO, just not the Masters degree itself.

At the next family-attending Georgia Tech Professional Education function I'm going to petition everybody who'll stand still to allow people without a BS to earn the degree. But I think I'll actually be preaching to the choir.

Anyway, it's a huge step for them to create this program as is. And once the concerns about "degree devaluation" have passed, and enough demand has become apparent, maybe they'll be ready for the next step.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Does anyone know Georgia Tech's CS MS curriculum?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's described here: <http://www.cc.gatech.edu/future/masters/mscs/program>

The OMS won't initially have all the same courses (or specializations?), but the plan according to one of the GT videos is to reach approximate parity over time.

<comment><USER61> Thanks.

I can't wait to hear more on the admission process. Will they require a certain GPA? Will they need recommendation letters (as they do now)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Do i get a discount for being alum?</comment>


Show HN: A password manager for the command line - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/snoack/mypass <comment><AUTHOR> I'm the author of mypass. First of all, I'm very sorry to drop support (temporarily at least) for macOS and Windows with the latest release. It was a necessity for adopting SQLCipher (without available bindings for Python 3). But I reached the point where rolling (and encrypting) my own data structures is no longer a reasonable option (in particular with added support for multi- context credentials). On the other hand, the latest release adds support for FreeBSD (in addition to Linux).

Unlike most Show HN posts this isn't a new software, but one that I initially created back in 2014, and ended up spending a fair amount of time on recently, leading to its 2.0 version which I released today. In the beginning it was just a hack scratching a personal itch of mine. But I think mypass has matured a lot since then, and I'd love to get some feedback from other potential users.

<comment><USER2> While I really appreciate your efforts, can you elaborate on the benefits over pass (passwordstore.org)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Honestly, when I first started working on mypass, I wasn't aware of "pass".

Anyway, one issue I have with "pass" is that it leaks metadata, as it uses the file system to organize different credentials, while only the files storing the credentials itself are encrypted.

Also "pass" uses GPG for encryption, which can provide additional security if you store your private key on an external drive or smartcard, and take additional measures to make it more difficult to obtain access to your password store and private key at the same time. But in the more common setup where the password store is stored along the private key on the same device, cracking your GPG passphrase will require less computation than cracking a passphrase using PBKDF2 with 256,000 iterations like used for key derivation in mypass.

<comment><USER2> Cool, see the points. I will have a look into mypass :)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's awesome. I'm looking forward to any feedback. Not sure for how much longer I will keep monitoring this thread. But you can reach me either by filing issues on GitHub, or if you could at least drop me an email at email@example.com and share your feedback I would much appreciate it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What People Around the World Dream About - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/dreams-world-atlas/393182/?single_page=true

<comment><USER2> > I teach from a scientific perspective—everything from Freud's interpretation > of dreams

Freud's ideas about dreams weren't exactly scientific.

</comment><comment><USER3> I believe that what we call the non-dreaming state, or being awake, is fundamentally the same as the dream state but stabilized by constant feedback from the world.

<comment><USER4> That seems to fit with my experiences of hypnagogia being drowned out by awareness of my environment.</comment></comment>


Former teenage soldier hatches millions from Chinese egg futures - <AUTHOR> http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/08/02/china-markets-eggfutures-idUKL4N0ZX1N620150802 <comment><USER2> Not really sure there is much to see here. When the market goes straight up anyone who borrows money to put into it will look like a genius.

> Last year, the volume of egg futures traded increased 1,703.3 percent from > 2013, making it the 9th largest futures market in the world by volume, > according to figures from the Futures Industry Association.

If there is that much money plowing into it, then you just buy and hold.

That's why people point to atleast a 5 year track record as the first rule to follow if you are looking to invest your money in an actively managed product.

The other thing to notice is that the results are unaudited. I too can claim any results I want if I have no investors.

<comment><USER3> Past results guarantee future returns.

...or something

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The opportunity Zhang saw was very specific: to borrow a lot of money > quickly to produce high profits in a poorly understood market.

Isn't this exactly what is currently bankrupting millions of Chinese citizens?

<comment><USER5> basically all the people who made their money are getting out and now the mass is getting into it.

Reminds me of the story a hedgefund wrote where his grandma started telling him to buy stocks, he immediately drove home, and closed all his positions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Zhang trades on his own account and Reuters was not able to independently verify his earnings."

</comment><comment><USER7> > Zhang trades on his own account...

> "The goal is to have the hedge fund with the highest return in the world, > with capital of around 100 billion yuan," he said.

I hope this is a translation issue, because otherwise it would seem that the subject doesn't even know the difference between a prop trader and hedge fund.</comment>


No one is safe in Hong Kong anymore. Leave when you still can - <AUTHOR> https://hongkongfp.com/2020/07/06/breaking-hong-kong-security-law-police-handed-power-to-do-warrantless-searches-freeze-assets-intercept-comms-control-internet/ <comment><AUTHOR> Please also note that the HK police's power to ban messages violating NSL is extraterritorial. This is regardless of whether the message/intermediary/hosting/internet service provider is within or outside Hong Kong.

[https://twitter.com/alvinllum/status/1280184488857710592](https://twitter.com/alvinllum/status/1280184488857710592)

</comment><comment><USER2> This was all pretty much guaranteed to happen eventually after the UK handed over Hong Kong to the PRC in 1997.

<comment><USER3> The west just lack China's attention span for stuff like this. China was perfectly willing to wait 20 years to make the move and waited for the perfect time when both the US and the UK are in utter disarray.

<comment><USER4> What would you have the us do about this? We are already in a confusing trade war with China. Because of it being a part of china I don't think the west is ready to go to war with China over it.

It's horrible, it's what China will do to anyone they get power over. I want everyone to leave there, I am terrified for all those brave young people. Their only hope is to leave.

<comment><USER5> It's not a loss to the world. It is a loss to China, and surely it is a loss to HK people but who are Chinese.

<comment><USER6> You're right. It's not a loss to the world. The world is filled up with kleptocracies, dictatorships(which China is) or just about anything in- between.

It is however a loss to the free democratic world.

<comment><USER7> I don't really think there's such a thing as the free democratic world nowadays.

<comment><USER6> Keep telling yourself that. You'll know the difference if or when you live under another system :)

<comment><USER7> I lived under another system, that's why I'm saying that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Atari Vault collection brings 100 classic games to Steam - <AUTHOR> http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/games/atari-vault-collection-brings-100-classic-games-to-steam/ar-BBozIsX?ocid=ansmsnnews11 <comment><USER2> I've bought this when I had an iPod Touch from the app store. It is 2600 and Arcade games that are emulated. It was difficult to play with a touch screen. It should be much better with a joystick or joypad.</comment>


California Laws Seek to Crack Down on Deepfakes in Politics and Porn - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/california-laws-seek-to-crack-down-on-deepfakes-in-politics-and-porn/ <comment><USER2> seems like a short-sighted regulation that will just kill smaller businesses that lack the resources to adequately detect and destroy deep fakes. even the large companies are working furiously in this domain.

also, why are deep fakes (particularly political ones) not protected under constitution?

<comment><USER3> I can't imagine how you'd think assuming someone else's identidy and faking correspondance in their name would be protected by the constitution?

<comment><USER2> yes, that makes sense, thanks!

<comment><USER2> but also memes do this, albeit to a lesser degree of similarity, right? i see peoples images with unspoken quotations over their face all the time. i see people with quotes almost akin to something they actually said, but either reworded or stripped of context. is it the audio that counts? the video? or do we require both to be _enough_ of a falsehood to prosecute?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


_why's Estate - <AUTHOR> http://viewsourcecode.org/why <comment><USER2> This, from one of the eulogies, made me grin:

 _In chapter 1, the narrator tells a story to "get you in the mood" for the Poignant Guide. "Here's something poignant to get you started." It's a story about a dog who he found and adopted, named Bigelow, only to lose him right away._

 _In chapter 5, the narrator reveals that he is a Preeventualist. Preeventualism seems like a fairly new philosophical doctrine, asserting that the nature of all predictive thought is optimistic -- even dystopian futures are "optimistically" predicted to come true. Therefore preeventualists just "focus... on the understanding that hope will always prevail in any sort of thought". I'd never heard of preeventualism before, but it made sense that someone on the cutting edge of Internet programming would also be on the cutting edge of philosophical discourse. And it was cutting edge -- no wikipedia articles, no podcasts, nothing. Just one page of actual information on the preeventualist homepage, and that shout-out in the Poignant Guide._

 _But it's a pretty compelling philosophy on the face of it, and they have a preeventualist youth group responsible for maintaining the web page (which is probably why it went down with such frequency). You can see other examples of preeventualist thought if you know what you're looking for: Anathem is pretty preeventualist, and if you start to think seriously about Long-Now style timescales I bet you'll become somewhat preeventualist yourself. (You'll start to mix up words like "molding" and "embroidery".) And of course there's always Ashley Raymond's blog, which sadly doesn't get updated at all. In fact, there's only the one entry, in which Ashley Raymond talks about his time with his dog, whom he called Biggles, whose "accusatory gaze often hinted at how wrong my pronounciation must have been"._

 _Wait. Biggles? Bigelow?_

 _So I did a whois on preeventualist.net, and sure enough, it was registered to _why the Lucky Stiff. Conclusion: the dude FABRICATED AN ENTIRE PHILOSOPHY FOR A THROWAWAY JOKE IN HIS STUPID BOOK. And it wouldn't be so stunning except that I BECAME a preeventualist in the time between discovering the philosophy and discovering that it was "fake" (if such a thing can be said of an idea)._

</comment><comment><USER3> This guy got me into Ruby. For that I will be forever grateful.

</comment><comment><USER4> I sincerely hope he will re-emerge some day soon as _justbecause. Creative, challenging minds like that make us all better.

</comment><comment><USER5> When people talk about "being passionate" _why is the type of person they should be talking about.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know what happened to him?

To me it seems like a digital suicide :(

<comment><USER7> A few people did some internet stalking back when he first disappeared and tracked down some of his real-life friends and family. Creepy, yes, but also enough to determine that the man behind the pseudonym is alive and well.

And, since one of the suspected reasons for why he chose to disappear as he did was "people prying into his real-life non-_why identity", it's probably best if we leave it at that.

<comment><USER8> Wow, what kind of jerk would call up his family when it's painfully obvious that that was exactly the sort of thing he was trying to get away from?

<comment><USER9> Actually, when a person has touched lives of so many people in a very good and profound way, he cannot escape a bit of attention back. The enquiry "are you ok?" is human and not evil.

<comment><USER8> I understand the impulse, but stalking _why's family has much more to do with selfish, lurid curiosity than any legitimate concern for _why's safety.

<comment><USER2> Stalking _why online doesn't turn into Internet stalking. If I hunt a guy down in real life, but all I do with his family is talk to them and see if he was okay, I'm not stalking them. I'm just contacting them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> wow, I am actually amazed by the projects he has created, I actually knew him only for his 'Poignant Guide' and the 'Shoes'. He has created tons of amazing projects, Now I really miss him :)

</comment><comment><USER11> This is awesome. Good job.

Interesting timing... I'm just working on the new site for Hackety Hack right now...

</comment><comment><USER12> Really happy to see this collection of links and articles, it's useful.

</comment><comment><USER13> All of what _why has accomplished fills me with awe. He was so prolific, and everything he made was amazing, and along with it he was one of the coolest people I've seen online. He was humble, didn't take anything too seriously (up until his disappearance, I suppose), and encouraged me to rethink a lot of my attitudes.

His disappearance definitely wasn't a very considerate thing to do, but at least we still have most of his amazing work.

This page is full of links to awesomeness.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm still wondering what "andrea" was:

[http://img.skitch.com/20091219-b386ifyqq1uqrfa2nu4qpd75du.pn...](http://img.skitch.com/20091219-b386ifyqq1uqrfa2nu4qpd75du.png)

</comment><comment><USER15> Try Ruby is down :-(

<comment><USER16> Does anyone have some info on how we could get involved in bringing Try Ruby back up? (And without the bugs I experienced the last time I tried it)</comment></comment>


Why I Resigned from the Gates Foundation - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/opinion/modi-gates-award.html <comment><USER2> It's not something I'd expect most non-Indians to notice immediately, but the whole "politicians promise toilets" thing has been a common scam in India for decades. It's a very easy thing to promise, and frequently half-delivered if at all. Getting a toilet built and safely maintained is almost as rare as a cold-email from Nigeria following through with the million dollars they promised.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why has this been flagged? The article by itself is an interesting nuanced take. Was it flagged due to the extremely poor quality of comments here or due to people down voting the article?

<comment><USER4> It's a controversial topic. Many of us "westerners" don't "get" some aspects of Muslim culture. It's hard to express the puzzlement in a way that doesn't offend. I do try to ask diplomatically, but my ability to articulate such sticky subject matter in a seamless way is apparently limited. Please have patience.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand your comment. Are we commenting on the same article? As far as I can tell this article is about Modi and how the Gates foundation is wrong in its decision to award Modi.

The article speaks about how the Clean India Mission is a farce in reality. It speaks about the NRC which ironically, despite its original intent, ended up rendering a majority of Hindus stateless. It speaks about the completely undemocratic lock down of Kashmir.

How is any of this related to Muslim culture? Or do you think any anti Modi article is by some odd definition, decidedly pro Muslim? That's like saying any anti Trump article is definitely anti American. Muslims are referred to almost as many times as Dalit, Christians and Jews. Show we question their culture as well?

Don't dress your bigotry in the garb of pseudo intellectualism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> tl;dr - Butthurt muslim feelings about other people treating Muslims 1% as bad as muslims treat non-muslims.

<comment><USER6> We've banned this account for repeatedly posting flamebait to HN and ignoring our requests to stop.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER7> I understand that the wording is not very intelligent and even malevolent, and, what is interesting, if you abstract that's how I would imagine an accurate description would sound out of an internet troll's mouth.

Narrative and contexts are extremely important, in this case, Islam has been historically (and still is) of the strictest religions (if not The). With precisely described and followed rules for entering (conversion), and exiting (death is the only exit on papers, but majority are quite moderate and the worst you'll get is a disappointed kick in the butt by your family), and about "universal" way everyone should live their live.

And specifically due to this "strictness" (easy to convert and "impossible" to break out) we see the "popularity" of this religion on the World's Map, and also due to this "strictness" modern views and prejudices have been formed as it is very easy for a small group of extremists to take it over the top.

<comment><USER7> Also history is fascinating! Just a couple centuries ago the roles were reversed! Middle east is the cradle of the math as we know it! While West and Europe were busy with crusades and inquisitions, they were doing math and science in Alexandria. Wonder how things will play out in a couple hundred years from now.

<comment><USER8> There are lots of articles about how Americans have become increasingly cynical and dismissive of science. Who knows, maybe another reversal will occur in a hundred or so years, with Americans abandoning science and the Middle East abandoning religion.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Allowing CMake functions to return(value) - <AUTHOR> https://oleksandrkvl.github.io/2020/08/09/allowing-cmake-functions-to-return-value.html <comment><USER4> A semi-relevant rant about CMake, for those interested in that kind of thing:

The CMake scripting language is just awful. It breaks with convention to do things in its own unintuitive way. (Who though the _endfunction()_ syntax was a good idea? Or the bizarre function-call syntax?) It's error-prone, it shows cryptic error-messages, it's able to break in subtle ways, much of the documentation is for deprecated functionality, and worst of all, it lacks a consistent design pattern. One shouldn't have to _think_ when making a _Find..._ CMake script so that CMake can find an installed package. It should be a very boring task of adapting existing boilerplate. But it's not so. It's an agonising uphill battle with this atrocious language.

Subtle bugs like [0] wouldn't even be possible in a well-designed build- system, but CMake lets you shoot yourself in the foot as punishment for not knowing its every subtlety.

It's unfortunate that CMake is the least bad build system we have. You should probably still use CMake for multi-platform code. You shouldn't expect people to learn some obscure rival build-system just to work on your code. I'll certainly continue using CMake for what little C++ I write myself. Once you've beaten your CMake scripts into submission (generally thanks to the extensive body of knowledge on StackOverflow, in my experience), CMake works a treat on a bunch of different platforms. It's just a pity the language is so terrible.

[0] [https://github.com/dankamongmen/notcurses/issues/711](https://github.com/dankamongmen/notcurses/issues/711)

<comment><USER5> > It's unfortunate that CMake is the least bad build system we have.

With caveats--I've switched to Bazel. Bazel does solve the very real, very hairy problems of compiling C++ programs for different platforms, on different platforms. It is a damn beautiful thing. There are a few places where Bazel really shines. For example, generated sources, multi-language projects, and building third-party dependencies from source (without monorepos or Git submodules--you can get your third-party sources from HTTP, Git, etc).

If my project does _any_ of these things (third-party dependencies, uses multiple languages, or generated sources), I reach for Bazel immediately.

That said--it is also impossible to give an unqualified recommendation for Bazel. The documentation and community is catching up, and a few simple things (like using pkg-config) are a bit more difficult to get working than they should.

<comment><USER6> Bazel is the least bad build system I've used too. Just wanted to note, though, it is _not_ damn beautiful. Maybe its internal (idealistic) model is beautiful, but the outer parts are something else. It does have awesome features, but it has lots of bugs, rough edges, and weird behavior too. Try specifying your own compilers, or adding your own steps to the build process, getting things working on Windows, etc. and if you don't already know how to do it, you will probably hate your life trying to figure it out. And forget about putting your workspace into a path with spaces, even if your repo path lacks spaces inside it and you use relative paths everywhere -- it simply can't do that (while even Make can). There are lots of random issues with undeclared headers and ungenerated files that come up from time to time that make absolutely no sense and are likely bugs that are incredibly hard to track down. (Of course some of these errors are legitimate too, just painful to track down. I'm saying not all of them are. Some are even nondeterministic.) And good luck if your user name (and hence home directory) has a space in it, which it very well might if you're on Windows. All in all, it might be better than anything else I've used, but not in every case, and that's not an unconditional endorsement.

<comment><USER5> While Make _can_ deal with spaces, you have to pass them through multiple layers of splitting. I've done it before, but I've given up on anything besides escaping every single space and pasting it into the Makefile (with a script), and not using any of Make's variable expansion functionality.

Spaces are how Make separates items in arrays, after all. For example, take this contrived example:

        foo.c\ bar.c
                echo $(patsubst %.c,%.h,$@)

If Make had some concept of arrays, it would echo "foo.c bar.h", but it does not. While this example is super contrived, it should illustrate the general problem.

<comment><USER6> Note I was explicitly talking about spaces in the current directory (which is only dependent on _where_ the user clones the repo), not spaces in the workspace (which depends on what's in the repo). Your examples are about the latter. The latter isn't as big of a deal because the repo owner at least has control over the contents and can avoid putting spaces in file names (and use relative paths everywhere). But they can't control where the user clones their repo.

<comment><USER5> Ah, that makes sense. Maybe I've just suffered abuse from projects that can't be built anywhere for so long that it seems normal--I remember a particular team I worked on where the project needed to be spread across the X:, Y:, and Z: drives with bind mounts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Most part of my career I used Visual Studio and when switched to Linux I was > slightly shocked. Compared to MSVS, makefiles felt like bows and arrows > against machine gun.

I honesty have no idea how some people come up with these absurd comparisons. I mean, who in their right mind feel is appropriate to compare a Makefile with a build system? And how clueless about things are "in the Linux world" do you need to be to claim that Makefiles are how people build software in Linux?

I mean, I've been using Linux for a couple of decades now and I can't remember the last time I saw a project that relied on Makefiles to build. At best projects use some kind of Makefile generator. The ancient ones use autotools and even those are going the way of the dodo.

> CMake allows us to handle almost all those things right except one - <USER3> > doesn't have return values

This is a red flag. If you're hoping to write functions with cmake... You're doing it wrong. Very wrong. You add targets, and you add rules to the target. If you find yourself wanting to do anything other than this then you should take a step back and read a modern cmake tutorial again, because odds are you're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER8> > _I can 't remember the last time I saw a project that relied on Makefiles to > build_

I don't know what GNU/Linux you're using, because in my experience, most packages going into a distro use make.

Oh, and then there is that whole denominator in the GNU/Linux fraction that's built with GNU Make.

Maybe you don't see Makefiles because you're relying on binary packages?

<comment><USER9> > I don't know what GNU/Linux you're using, because in my experience, most > packages going into a distro use make.

no, they use autotools or cmake, which happens to generate makefiles. the package authors themselves definitely don't write any makefiles by hand except maybe for trivial packages (and frankly I'm not sure)

<comment><USER8> Autotools generate a Makefile project, and nothing but a Makefile project. All the buiding in the development cycle is done by typing "make". Autotools projects include a template makefile: Makefile.am. Make is not concealed in any way.

Also note that not all Autotools-based projects use Automake. Using only Autoconf, with a hand-maintained Makefile, is a thing.

The goal of Autotools is to produce a software distribution that doesn't require the end user to have Autotools. The end user has a shell to run the configure script, and that's it. If that works, they run "make".

About the most sophisticated generation the user will see is that some Makefile.in template is passed through sed to substitute @@XYZ@@ variables.

<comment><USER10> Make is like an assembly language of the build systems. This layer gives structure and debuggability (otherwise you're spending time poking at some opaque UI or something).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The claim that CMake is the least worst C++ build system that we have is pure BS.

In my last 3 professional C++ projects I've actually used Rust's cargo tool as my build tool for C++ code. Infinitely better than CMake, plus you use Rust as your scripting language for your build system, which has great libraries for it like the cc crate, and pretty much a crate for whatever it is you want to build (eg ispc? no problem).

<comment><USER12> Fluffy, could I ask you to give a few more details about how you set this up? Sounds interesting!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I personally find it surprising that so many people are still stuck on old, outdated build systems like CMake. Modern alternatives like Bazel ([https://bazel.build/](https://bazel.build/)) are light years ahead.

<comment><USER14> Right now, CMake is being actively integrated into QtCreator and Visual Studio where they previously had their own bespoke defaults. It might be shit but it's also becoming more and more "standard" as one DSL you need for cross- platform builds, instead of fifteen xkcd-927 style.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > CMake allows us to handle almost all those things right except one - <USER3> > doesn't have return values

One of my former bosses once quipped "CMake is confusing until you realize it's just a shitty version of BASIC that only has global variables"

<comment><USER16> Is there a dialect of BASIC that has scoping/namespaces or even locals?

<comment><USER17> Visual Basic was ok from what I remember.

<comment><USER18> Technically yes, also VB.net . Reminds me that old joke that any language can run on .Net runtime (a.k.a. CLR) as long as that language is C#. Somehow VB.net is kind of C# with VB syntax and some corners cut that they could not fit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So glad that new languages don't need build systems.

go build .

<comment><USER20> I'm sure you can find people ranting about how their "xxx_windows.go" files got silently ignored by go build. Just like every part of Go, everything ugly is hidden and "just works" until it can't, and major WTF moments strikes after that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've given up on these sorts of build systems. If I ever had to screw with a C/C++ codebase again, I would just write my entire toolchain in C#. I know for a fact that modern C# 8.0+ will not bite me in the ass with inconsistent ideologies. I also have extreme confidence that I could add in complex build concerns such as communication with other systems for obtaining dependencies or logging important information.</comment>


The Psychedelic Inspiration for Hypercard (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.mondo2000.com/2018/06/18/the-inspiration-for-hypercard/ <comment><USER3> The Internet Archive has a large collection[1] (3,500+) of HyperCard stacks that can be run directly in the browser (using in-browser emulation of an old Mac Plus).

I've been "maintaining" this collection of stacks for around three years - keeping the uploader[2] running (yes, you can add your own stacks!), checking the stacks for bugs / errors in the emulation, etc... and the range and breadth of what was created in HyperCard is just amazing.

You've got silly little animations[3], sound samplers[4], choose-your-own adventure stories[5], reference guides[6] and teaching materials[7] (that last one was added to the collection with the very kind help of someone at the USGS who mailed me a CD-ROM so I could add it).

I thoroughly recommend that those unfamiliar with HyperCard have a browse of the collection and see what was made possible by this groundbreaking 1980s tool.

[1] [https://archive.org/details/hypercardstacks](https://archive.org/details/hypercardstacks)

[2] [http://hypercardonline.tk/](http://hypercardonline.tk/)

[3] [https://archive.org/details/hypercard_computer_sind_doof](https://archive.org/details/hypercard_computer_sind_doof)

[4] [https://archive.org/details/hypercard_cheapsequencersit](https://archive.org/details/hypercard_cheapsequencersit)

[5] [https://archive.org/details/hypercard_inigo_gets_out](https://archive.org/details/hypercard_inigo_gets_out)

[6] [https://archive.org/details/hypercard_macprinters-11](https://archive.org/details/hypercard_macprinters-11)

[7] [https://archive.org/details/hypercard_usgs---teaching- earth-...](https://archive.org/details/hypercard_usgs---teaching-earth- science)

<comment><USER4> Found a gem browsing around the Internet Archive: The Meeting Watcher[1] calculates the ongoing cost of a meeting. No doubt for use by responsible managers and disgruntled employees alike.

[1] [https://archive.org/details/hypercard_the-meeting- watcher](https://archive.org/details/hypercard_the-meeting-watcher)

<comment><USER5> that's fantastic. i used to manually do this whenever i'd show up to a meeting with 40+ people. it puts things into perspective.

<comment><USER6> Especially when you ask how the outcome of the meeting translates to $X in revenue to cover the cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hypercard remains extraordinary. It anticipated the web, but have a taste of its _scripting language_ :

        if the number of chars in field "Customer Code" is not 7 then
          ask "Please type in the 7-letter customer code"
          put it into field "Customer Code"
        end if

This is a _real language_! 'ask' pops up a modal dialog. 'it' is a special identifier meaning "the last result", like Perl's context variables.

But what is most lovely about this language is that it focused on users. As a user you could drag out a button, then double click and write some Hypertalk scripting. It was part of a vision where computing would empower amateurs to become desktop publishers or artists or programmers or...

The web captured that magic for a time, when it was about HTML with light JS. But the modern web has advanced beyond the amateur.

<comment><USER8> What sucks about these languages is complex sentences that look like loose English but are actually formal syntax. ".length" is so much easier to understand and remember as a formal sentence than "the number of chars in".

<comment><USER9> > What sucks about these languages is complex sentences that look like loose > English but are actually formal syntax.

I really like this though!

It's true, you can't just write English sentences and expect the computer to understand you—you have to learn the "formal syntax". But, once you've _written_ that code, it _comes out_ as English sentences, so you can _read_ what your code is doing _in English!_

I _love_ this. I've never used Hypercard (too young), but I do use Applescript, which was based on Hypertalk's syntax and which—sometimes, when Applescript isn't being crappy—has the same property.

If there are other modern languages that do this effectively and can be used for more than just macOS automation, I'd love to know about them...

<comment><USER10> 'Wowfunhappy, I strongly suggest you take a look at the Inform 7 programming language:

[http://inform7.com/](http://inform7.com/)

It is powerful, stable, and addresses many of the issues of using an English- like syntax. It comes with an IDE and two hyperlinked manuals, which contain hundreds of working code samples implementing everything from basic conversations to systems of weights and measures. Finally, as one of the pillars of the modern interactive fiction<1> development community, it is under active development by its creator, in the saddle for twenty-plus years now.

Here's a sample (syntax may be slightly wrong):

 _A person can be nervous or relaxed. A person is usually relaxed.

The Train Station is a room. Joe is a man in the Train Station. Joe is nervous. "Joe shifts from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable." The description of Joe is "[if Joe is nervous]He's shifting uncomfortably[else]He's standing tall and proud[end if]."

Understand "cheer" as something new. Cheering is an action related to one person.

Carry out cheering (x - a person): if x is nervous: now x is relaxed; otherwise, say "[X] doesn't need to be cheered up." instead.

Report cheering (x - a person): say "You clap [X] on the back. It works: [regarding X: his] mood lightens."<2>_

That's all you need for rudimentary gameplay:

TRAIN STATION

Your buddy, Joe, shifts from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable.

> look at joe

He's shifting uncomfortably.

> cheer joe

You clap Joe on the back. It works: his mood lightens.

> examine joe

He's standing tall and proud.

<1>: the medium started by, but not limited to, text adventure games like ADVENT and Zork

<2>: [regarding X: his] is roughly the syntax used to change "his", "her", etc. into the appropriate gender for the variable X. Because games and experiences built with Inform have all-text contents and interfaces, Inform provides a large number of constructs to tame printed strings.

<comment><USER11> Inform6 is much better and easier.

<comment><USER10> Thanks for responding.

In syntax, the two languages are quite unalike, so I think the relative "easiness" will come down to whether or not the learner was already a programmer.

As for "better:" better _at what_? better _for whom_? and _why_?

<comment><USER11> better _than_ if7. By design. If7 may be better for the non-programmer, but the syntax can be hideous. If6 allows you to be pretty modular writting very few of logic code.

<comment><USER12> Think of if7 as low-hanging fruit: if people _who enjoy text adventures_ can't be bothered to play guess-the-verb, who can?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think most people (who have tried psychedelics) will have a story like this, but will never share it publicly because of the obvious stigma attached with these "drugs".

Most people on HN will try to reduce these experiences and theory-craft over why/how, instead of giving in (and accepting the fact) that these things and experiences are something which have puzzled the human civilisation for ages, so instead just try it once and make your opinion then.

Now obviously some of the psychedelic purists will claim to do a higher dose to see the full potential, but I would recommend to do just a very very light dose, such that effects are noticeable but not overpowering at all.

My reasoning for a lower dose is that, our mind quickly starts craving the experiences of a higher dose (if the experience was good). Craving not in the sense of doing the psychedelics again, but craving in the sense that if-only- I-was-in-that-state-of-mind-all-my-problems-will-be-solved sense. Contrary, any bad experience(trip) can cause severe PTSD symptoms. If you see, both positive and bad trips have the same effect in some sense (just in opposite directions).

Now, with a lower dose, the chances of bad trip happening is quite lower. A bad trip happens when you feel you are losing control, chances of that happening on lower dose is very very small. From a purist perspective the lower dose does not "unlock" the full potential of the psychedelic. Of course, there is always set-and-setting which also effect what you feel and how you integrate the experience later on.

The effects of a lower dose are similar to just feeling "good" about yourself, like waking up after a good nights sleep and looking at a valley of colourful flowers without any sort of mental burden. You could be just looking at your room and feel the same way. The experience of lower doses, can also give you a window into how the affects of a good meditation session feels like.

This is not the entire picture, but I suppose I should just stop writing.

<comment><USER14> Ha after watching Jobs I was like "will I be Steve Jobs if I try some LSD" but I did not do it.

<comment><USER15> You did not become Steve Jobs?

<comment><USER14> Sadly no, I lack that ferocity, no I meant I didn't partake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I just finished reading "What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry," which similarly covers how many of the computing pioneers were influenced by psychedelics.[0]

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000OCXFYM](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000OCXFYM)

</comment><comment><USER17> I never had a trip that inspired me to do something very creative. I mean the will to create something psychedelic was there, and I done some brightly colored doodles in my notebook, but that was about it.

Also psychedelics for me rarely tried to make me push for a better future as discussed in the article. If anything, they thrust me directly into the present, _' the felt presence of direct experience'_ as McKenna called it.

Trips for me, were always like dreams, in that they are ultra vivid and lucid, and worthy of remembering, but quickly fade away like RAM when a computer turns off. Kudos to the author for bringing something back from the trip, something I could rarely do.

One insight I did have though is the importance of knowing the time[0], which is why I surround myself with several clocks, which are all synced together, and none of them would be fast or slow. That's the only insight I gained after 10+ powerful trips!

[0] Anecdotally I once had a situation entirely absent of clocks which freaked me out whilst tripping. My phone was absent, I didn't own a wristwatch. The TV had only international stations with different time-zones, and there was no- one nearby that I could ask for the time. Lesson learned.

</comment><comment><USER18> Psychedelics should be legalised and regulated. There are many social benefits we're missing out on, including the insights possible in the article, as well as promising results for depression and other mental health problems. Instead we have all the ill effects of criminalisation...

</comment><comment><USER19> "Why Hypercard Had to Die .. The Apple of Steve Jobs needed HyperCard-like products like the Monsanto Company needs a $100 home genetic-engineering set."

[http://www.loper-os.org/?p=568](http://www.loper-os.org/?p=568)

</comment><comment><USER20> Kary Mullis tells a similar story about inventing PCR (polymerase chain reaction), for which he won the Nobel prize in Chemistry.

</comment><comment><USER21> I love how he was able to identify a problem of huge scale that truly mattered to him and was able to make a massive impact in solving that problem. Very inspiring. It feels very rare that all of those things line up (identifying a core problem, having the ability to solve it, and the time in which to do so), but this article gives me hope to keep striving for it

<comment><USER22> What's interesting is that the mission and its underlying question isn't that dissimilar from Doug Engelbart's, but the answer is completely different. Not a bootstrapping cyborg, but a friendly tool for recording and communicating data.

<comment><USER23> Hypercard couldn't exist without Englebart's UI, though

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Hypercard lead to macOS Applescript, iOS Workflow and then iOS Shortcuts.

An iOS shortcut can be executed when iPhone is touched to a piece of paper with an NFC tag, or a geofenced zone is entered. The script can manipulate apps in iOS, then SSH to a remote device, invoke Linux code or SaaS APIs, then pass that data back to iOS for local processing and presentation to the user.

The iOS Shortcut language editor is free on hundreds of millions of iPhones. Sadly, there is little support for backup, restore, sharing, discovery, versioning or auditing.

</comment><comment><USER25> Part of the genius of HyperCard was that it didn't take long for someone to learn the whole language and all the things you could do. Once I hit the edges there were a few things I wanted to do that HyperCard didn't support but I found I could write an XCMD (external command) in Pascal or C to add any feature I wanted. That involved buying a compiler and Inside Macintosh books, and learning a much harder language, but I was so enthused with what I'd created so far that I didn't want to stop. Each individual XCMD I wanted seemed small enough that it seemed possible to write. Once an XCMD was done it was easy to use and reuse on different projects.

As it turns out, I'm weird, and very few people made that jump to XCMDs and soon I had a full time job writing them. Eventually our products were so XCMD heavy that I started writing Mac apps from scratch in C. It was a nice gradual seduction into programming from the career I was originally trained for.

<comment><USER3> If you still have any of those XCMDs lying around, it'd be great if you could upload them[1] to the HyperCard stacks collection[2] - particularly if you still have source code. (Of course, only if not covered under NDAs, etc...).

If they're still on old media (floppy disks, SCSI hard drives, etc...) contact me[3] and I'll do by best to help get them transferred.

[1] [http://hypercardonline.tk/](http://hypercardonline.tk/)

[2] [https://archive.org/details/hypercardstacks](https://archive.org/details/hypercardstacks)

[3] firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER25> An example of the XCMD-heavy HyperCard stuff I worked on was the "Last Chance to See" Mac CD-ROM with Douglas Adams. A small team worked on it but the whole UI is done with XCMDs I wrote as is the audio streaming. I don't see an ISO for that online (well it would be two ISOs as it was a double-CD-ROM).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26>
        > It occurred to me the weak link for the Blue Marble team is wisdom. Humanity has achieved sufficient technological power to change the course of life and the entire global ecosystem, but we seem to lack the perspective to choose wisely between alternative futures.

Are we any wiser today?

<comment><USER27> His invention allowed the easier transmission of knowledge, which is undoubtedly valuable. His mistake was in thinking that transmission of knowledge necessarily leads to wisdom. Wisdom comes from direct experience. Knowledge is knowing, wisdom is being. They are two sides of the same process, but people often get hung up on the knowledge part of it and never go out into the world and deeply live.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> While I was offered LSD before, I could never shake the feeling that somehow this was "doing drugs" and therefore wrong. Objectively I could sense that this didn't quite follow logically, but I guess it is hard to shake the conditioning? Anyone else felt this?

<comment><USER29> There is a lot of misinformation for LSD and other psychedelics, going back to the 60's. I certainly remember all those whispered rumors of the kid that took some and though the could fly and jumped out the 6 story window.

If you're looking for an objective (in my opinion) perspective on LSD and other psychedelics, consider getting a copy of How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan. Definitely a good read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm not American, but when I think of America, that is what comes to my mind: the optimism of creative thinkers. The way that folks at Apple thought about computer is beautiful: they could be much more than tools for technical people.

I now someone may polarize what I said with some whataboutims, but I think it's good to focus on the positive once in a while.

<comment><USER31> It's true; this yin-yang of "What if there's a better way?" / "Don't tell me what to do" is inseparable in America, and is at the root of so much of what makes it both great and terrible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> HyperCard was the single greatest inspiration in my programming career. I learned it when I was about 12, the age of the kids in The Wonder Years show. So it had a huge effect on my brain's development.

It's a little hard to explain what's so great about it. What I remember is that it was my first real exposure to scripting vs systems programming. So for example, I played with the little MIDI-style music generator forever. It blew me away that such simple notation controlled the complexity of the music chip. I sort of knew that somehow computers used binary and converted bytes to the shape of sine waves and stuff, because I was also using an old program called SoundEdit to kind of draw sound using commands like "envelope" and "FM synthesis" if I remember correctly. But being able to command that complexity from a conversational or human standpoint really blew me away.

And everything in HyperCard was like that. You could dial the modem, speak text, make your own calculator or rolodex, just on and on and on, in probably the smallest amount of code that I've ever encountered. And my parents could even read the code, without ever learning how to program!

So what that ended up creating was a feeling that the computer was full of easter eggs. For example, I didn't have access to array functionality (or more accurately, wouldn't have known how to use such a construct). I needed it to store the piece locations for the walls in a Gauntlet-style game I was making. So I ended up storing the coordinates like (100,200) as lines in a text field, and then seeing if that text "contains" the coordinate I was trying to move onto. But see, the text search functionality even on an 8 MHz Mac Plus is so fast as to be effectively infinite from a human frame of reference. So even though I was full-text searching these text fields, the game ran in real time and was a lot of fun. I still use this technique today in languages like PHP, where I know that the language is slow, but I can call down to any system call or compiled C function, and it will generally be faster than I need it to be.

The only downside is that it opened my eyes to how tech could serve humanity, only to see that vision inverted so that we ended up at the present day where humanity serves tech. I know that the direction that tech is going is wrong, but I have trouble articulating how or why. And it kind of haunts me that something as revolutionary as HyperCard could be written in the 80s in Pascal, such a primitive language by today's standards, but we keep missing the mark with all of our modern tools.

What's the next tool like HyperCard that could free humanity from this tedious labor? I just don't know, and that bothers me. I think loosely that it will work like J.A.R.V.I.S. on Ironman, but I know that all of the current approaches like Alexa and Siri are coming at it from the wrong direction. They're trying to find use cases for consumers from a profit motive perspective. But digital assistants need to work more like wolframalpha.com, and give users access to all of the capabilities in their computer (only in a notation that isn't terrible, no offense to Wolfram Alpha). I do know that some of the prerequisites are blocked by corporations though, like we should have had a cross-platform scripting language like HTML/Javacript long before the arrival of the internet. Apple and Microsoft would never allow that though, obviously. It should have been more of a hybrid between AppleScript and VBScript, only not terrible. Even AppleScript is a profoundly worse language than HyperTalk, and I don't know why. These deep questions get glossed over by everyone, and I hear quips and solutions for this or that. But remarkably, everyone is wrong, or else we'd be using that next better thing.

</comment><comment><USER33> It's funny how things makes sense when you are under influence, but it is less usual it becomes real. I guess drugs helps you to let go and be more imaginative. But, it does not mean you need to take LSD to have brilliant ideas.

<comment><USER34> Story time.

I recall one afternoon I took mushrooms, when I was perhaps 15 years old. Not a huge quantity, but enough for a mild, pleasant experience.

That same evening I realised that I had to write an essay for school - <USER2> wasn't like me, but I'd completely forgotten about it, and now had a single evening to write a whole essay... bah, how could I possibly do that?!

I sat down, and... it just _flowed_. Words, sentences, paragraphs, ideas, characters, just sprang to life on the page - and it was _good_ , really good! My mind felt amazing - like my consciousness had been expanded. I'd never felt such pure imagination and joy of knowledge before.

By the end of the evening I had unquestionably the best essay I'd ever written, and about twice the target length.

A week or so later when I got the results, it was a B, and I was kind of shocked. But the teacher called me back after class - he told me what I submitted was way better than A+ work, more what would be expected at university level. He also asked who wrote it, because "it obviously wasn't you" \- he didn't believe my insistence that I'd written it. He couldn't prove anything, so gave it a B and strongly warned me not to "pull a stunt like this ever again".

Of course, people can have great ideas and do great work without hallucinogenic drugs - that should really go without saying. But the results with such drugs can be utterly incredible - Also keep in mind the effect is not only while using the drug, but _afterwards_ too.

<comment><USER35> Did you ever try to reproduce this experience and experiment with writing under the of psychedelics?

<comment><USER34> Well, there is another story there.

Just some weeks later, I took mushrooms again - but this time we took way, way more. _Hundreds_ of them.

Shortly after the effects started coming on, I had a stupid argument with my friend and I was left alone for a while feeling bad. It all went down hill from there. I was disorientated and confused, lost all depth perception, and was seeing small monsters all over the place - I'd turn round and see one huddled in a corner, staring at me like it was planning an attack, then it was gone and I'd see another elsewhere. I was absolutely terrified; the whole experience was like the "essence" of terror.

I seem to recall that in total the effects lasted for something like 12 hours. For the last few I was huddled up on a bed, shaking uncontrollably, thinking it would never end.

Right at the end, another friend sat with me and talked about something terrible that had happened to her, getting it of her chest, perhaps thinking I wouldn't remember afterwards. I actually became quite lucid then, and felt such empathy and human understanding that I haven't felt before (some people think I'm autistic, so in retrospect it was particularly meaningful!).

Anyway, that was the last time I ever took mushrooms, or any hallucinogen. Parts of the experience seem imprinted in my mind forever, and 20+ years on I'd still be really wary of taking hallucinogens again.

I think hallucinogens can be extremely powerful, but _must_ be used with care, and in the proper setting. I learned that the hard way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Seems like a pretty decent ideation process, and you can't argue with the result.

</comment><comment><USER37> Now I want to see some sort of functional language, without too many baroque features, with a Hypertalk-like veneer.</comment>


Terminal, can I haz nice welcome image? - <AUTHOR> http://bitboxer.de/2012/06/21/terminal-can-i-haz-nice-welcome-image/

<comment><USER2> Very neat!

One could also do it with a random image:

      wget http://quickimage.heroku.com/image/joker/80/60 -O- 2>/dev/null | icat -

(Assuming a high-speed low-latency connection otherwise terminal start-ups are slow.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Or you could fork a process that downloads the image you are showing on the next time and show the last downloaded one directly to the console. That way the terminal start up will stay fast and you will get a new image on each new terminal :)</comment></comment>