Codecademy, again

Context: See Tru'eng anew, focus going forward, mathematics.

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As we get technical, we'll have to look at coding, mathematics, and philosophy. For the first (coding), there is much to consider. The past week, I have looked at Codecademy's site, taken some of their lessons, and reacquainted myself with code (see first and second bullets, below). For the second (mathematics), I re-looked, yesterday, at a site dealing with mathematical physics. The site had posts about the authors recent finds (see third bullet, below).

For the last, see this Facebook (Philosophy matters) page, for now. I ran across this page while researching, after reading an article in Bloomsburg Businessweek about applying Heidegger to marketing of stuff. Well, truth will deal with business as much as with mathematics, science, and engineering. So, we will definitely be back to this.

- Coding - On this past Monday, I was looking at the read counts and saw that the Codecademy, at last post was in the most-read mix. Note that it had been written in September of 2012. Rather than post a comment on Facebook, I went to Linkedin and did several. Why Linkedin? My profile there talks about my experience with code over the past several decades. I have moved the comments from Linkedin to here; they follow: 02/24/2014 - I ran across codecademy.com in 2012. At the time, my interests were directed toward things other than code. If someone had asked me six years ago if that were possible (life without code - you see, I was buying into the code-based worldview - even though I knew that being was not subsumed therein), I would not have understood the question. Yes, one can live, nicely, without code, but ought we?. Then, today, I noticed that the post had been recently read, several times, so I looked again at the site. Hence this notice. 02/25/2014 - Started yesterday afternoon, off and on, going through Codecademy lessons. As of now, I have completed 48 of these. Which means coding up the example sufficiently to execute properly and to get by the watchdog that controls stepping to the next item. (see post Focus going forward)  02/26/2014 - Well, it isn't that the honeymoon is over, yet the glitter is gone. Sloughed through all sorts of errors, today, that the environment kept throwing at me (being long-time at this type of thing, was able to alter the situation properly in order to accomplish what I wanted). Ah, I miss the Lisp machine. While thinking of the Lisp machine fun, I recalled Prof Lucio Arteaga who worked with me on issues related to topology, category theory, and more. (see post Acknowledgements) As I was looking at Codecademy, I went through the process. The next bullet provides a snapshot of the activity.

- ... The image shows my profile at the Codecademy site. One steps through lessons for a language. Right now, it shows that I have completed HTML & CSS, jQuery, PHP, and YouTube API courses (hence, the badges). The first two were reviewed to catch up with what has been going on. As people talked when they bragged of going from static to dynamic pages, there is a lot of flexibility. And, one sees many sites related to things like buttons and such. Codecademy profile as of 03/02/2014 To discuss: This is fine as it can be fun. However, as I knew then, and everyone ought to know now, re-write (and the logic thereof) is a difficult problem with open issues. How is it that we have allowed this type of mess to be cast upon the world at large? The YouTube API course was interesting. Again, a couple of years ago, when Microsoft pushed people off the OfficeLive site (people had actually built their processes upon that MS offering), I did not think that MS was offering anything worth my time. So, I went to another provider. After looking at the "free" web site builders, I didn't find one that I liked. So, I hacked HTML using my early 2000 framework. Then, last year, I looked at Joomla, Concrete5, and others (see the ajswtlk.com site, as we will be changing that as an exercise). What I am considering now will be to use CSS mainly (so, thanks Codecademy). Notice that I'm in the process of looking at Python (was my favorite language after Lisp), Ruby on Rails, and Web Projects (mainly to see what people have done). Perhaps, after that I might try to do a class myself. I have been taking notes along the way. Notice, above, that I said that the glitter had left. Well, it can be tedious. You see, the courses have a watchdog that is not as intelligently designed as it ought to be. I have snaps of tricks that I had to do to get the thing to parse correctly in order to let me go on when I had things right, but the watchdog (course controller) could not see it. To wit, I have been hung on Ruby for several days not (32%) since the thing will not parse properly. I'll keep trying. If I get to 100% on everything else, I might have to contact the Codecademy folks. I will list some of the problems that I saw: racing/hung condition when trying to parse, improper refresh of their data structure (to wit, list where you were supposed to enter the line number in a blank field - to get it to parse, I reversed a couple of the numbers), ..., not handling delimiters properly (to wit, introducing a space - not necessary, in this case - urged the parser along).

- Imperatives Everyone ought to code something or other. Otherwise, we have the situation where wizards do the work and get too much freedom in the process. That is, people abdicate their responsibility. Or, they get addicted to whatever the wizards provide (alluding to the recent gaming pull and more). But, to be serious, the last post (Logic ... Reflections ...) mentioned discussions dealing with issues to which truth engineering needs (has) to pay attention. The main thing concerns the "fact" that our supposedly deterministic ways are not so. Computing (especially, the cloud) makes the problem even more of concern. Now, even if everyone does not code, they ought to be concerned about maturity (and, by inverse, immaturity). This week I read about some of the software engineering practices of JPL. In this case, it was the Mars program. The test, in this case, was the one-time use during the mission. A whole lot of upfront analysis and testing was necessary. Where is there any time for this type of thing with agile playing around? On the other hand, things seem to push out to the web in various states of incompleteness. Perhaps, the ease of a back-off (not done if the errors are minor, and the user can adapt) is the driver. Or, is it that we do not want to know the real costs, or to pay, for better solutions that are necessary for sustainability (of more than stuffing big pockets)?

Remarks:   Modified: 01/15/2015

03/03/2014 -- We need to relook at several things. Yes, like, bringing memes (and more) to the fore in the discussion. Mathematicians have their "ancestors," know about them (and their contributions), and honor them. What other field does that? My mathematical pedigree: Galileo Galilei (1585), Vincenzo Viviana (1642) Isaac Barrow (1652), Isaac Newton (1668), Roger Cotes (1706), Robert Smith (1715), Walter Taylor (1723), Steven Whisson (1742), Thomas Postlethwaite (1756), Thomas Jones (1782), Adam Sedgwick (1811), William Hopkins (1830), Arthur Cayley (1864), Andrew Russell Forsyth (1881),  Edmund Taylor Whittaker (1895), G.H. Hardy (), Edward Charles Titchmarsh (), Andrew P. Guinand (), Lucio Arteaga (1964), the blogger (). I took it back to 1585 since that would be co-temporal with those who were involved with the Great Migration to New England. Too, note that the ancestor is an adviser or mentor or tutor. This brings to mind that a meme'tic look at descendancy would consider the influence of step-child-ness. I have found many of these relationships.

03/07/2014 -- Like a lot of things on the web, this site is free. Given that, some think that leaves no right to comment or criticize. But, along with the free (which really is a subtle way to entangle) comes a total one-sided deal where changes are pushed upon users without much (or no) notice. Conform to (watch out for) the big elephant turning over in the bed is adage. Of course, the whole notion of incompleteness as it applies to computing is not understood, or downright ignored, by those who know better. In fact. many of the new billionaires can exalt in proving that they're smarter by having more money (my counsel would be for them to not think their brilliance outshines some very poor people - truth engineering will deal with that subject). ... Now, finally, the beef deals with the watchdog (supposedly couched as training overseer) function is idiotic in some cases. One of note. The console shows a printout just like the lesson wants. However, the watchdog says that it looks like there was not output. This type of thing is hard to skirt around whereas parser types of things can be tweaked enough for them to be happy.  --- Late note, I found a way around the watchdog's errancy. Will report back on this later.

03/19/2014 -- Update, on Fedaerated.

05/27/2914 -- Codecademy has a nice Javascript glossary with examples.

06/23/2014 -- Example of true cost being ignored: Phone app in eight hours.

01/05/2015 -- Tru'eng, anew. This post is one of the most popular, of late, which raises some interesting questions. But, code as the focus? We have this from Tegmark: Consciousness as a state of matter.

01/15/2015 -- I will be getting back to their site, soon. Perhaps, I can use javascript to have some demos about this topic which is a series that will establish the basis and extensions for a fair and technical economic framework (motivation? sustainability). We are going to go back to some simple and come forward to the modern, complicated economy. Why? My long chain of ancestors (inherited via Prof. Lucio Arteaga) is one motivation.

Does code matter?

Three years ago, I spent a little time with Codecademy (post: Codecademy, again). My profile is still there, from that time.

My purpose was to review progress by looking at the tools that were available. For a month, I went through the lessons and worked the exercises. It was interesting to see the on-line instruction. Naturally, I found a few bugs but overlooked them. At the time, it was free; now, there is a Pro option with more of a focus on results.

Also, at the time, I saw testimonials about people starting careers with this approach. That was interesting. Today, I ran into another (different method) that represents the time. The guy has blogged about his introduction into coding and the success that he has found.

• Ilovecoding blog

Then, I saw that one of morning show hosts talked to someone about an effort to teach coding to women. There are thousands of jobs open, I understand.

Hence, this little reminder. One problem with so many people just coding is that we're losing sight of issues related to quality (many issues). And, one sees this lack everywhere. Quality would include the user perspective, especially concerns related to safety, stability, and such.

I have already written about little businesses being bitten (Content and more). I just ran across an issue myself the past week: Technology's impact. So, we have issues related to content's management, efficacy of technology's use, and whole lot more.

But, a very important one relates to this theme: Does code matter? Based upon my experience, this glut of jobs is short-sighted. Code does not provide the business intelligence that everyone is after. Now, if code is mainly small perturbations (such as was brought by macro ability in spread sheets), then, that could very well be content related.

However, how many times do we need to re-invent the wheel?

Remarks: Modified: 03/23/2017

03/23/2017 -- Two recent videos (stumbled upon them). 1) Peter Metzger talks about his 31 years with Emacs. He shows a little of the history of computing devices. Run down memory lane. But, nice to see the old thing, Emacs, still having traction. 2) Which then brings up Richard Stallman. Richard started Emacs ball rolling (some have followed his sainthood into the editor wars - Emacs vs VI/VIM).

Also, he was first in looking at truth maintenance. But, in this video, Richard talks about his free software initiative and emphasizes, time and again, that purty systems, like Apple, have created a jail, made it purty, and then convinced people to jail themselves. He does not like what I call the dumbing device. He stresses surveillance. I see it as a tether to nonsense. Hence, I am 1G/2G, even in this day of talk about 5G. In terms of truth maintenance, Richard and his advisor (Sussman) worked on constraint satisfaction. Another aspect deals with defeasible reasoning.

Focus going forward

Context: See Tru'eng anew, focus going forward, mathematics.

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Truth is not an easy thing for us to process, yet it's at the core (several senses) of life which we see flow around us. Nature is the prime example, always there. And, it's a big subject.

We, from certain viewpoints, are in, and of, Nature (hint: I'm using big "N" just as we see capital "E" used for Evolution - the use of the big "E" says what?). And, we learn more about this all the time. Debatable extensions can be made to our knowledge (some say, it's the other way around) that address the us that is beyond Nature. Yet, as the operationalist view says, who cares?

That head-in-sand attitude is counter-productive which we intend to show. In essence, what we are heading toward is an explanation of how we need to switch our "limit" thinking in order to allow a more full experience and illumination. The following list points to focus areas.

- Incompleteness - This is, in part, the motivation for establishing, better, the basis for going forward. That is, we need to get back to looking at what "limits" abound (via undecidability, computablility, etc.). Alon Amit describes what is behind Kurt's theorems. In particular, note the four properties of interest: Effectiveness, Consistency, Completeness, Richness. He stresses that the theorems work without any meta-mathematical assistance. True; it's great to have his post as a source for further discussion. Yet, we will address a need for "meta" views as we consider t-issues. ... As an aside, Quora looks like it would be an interesting place to hang out.

- Codecademy - This site will be used to explore "code" and its existential meanings within the context of the emerging overlays (cloud, etc.). Plus, there will be other focal points related to our interchanges with our artificial partners. However, codecadmy will always be known as the first one that I encountered. ... Not interested in collecting points or showing prowess (so, ignore those, in my case, as I play around on the site).

- The sites of ajswtlk and ThomasGardnerSociety are content sites. In one thing, we'll take the content  management thing a little further. Too, though, we will use the ajswtlk site for matters specific to truth engineering and code. TGS, on the other hand, can serve as an example of the broader picture (persistent information and its maintenance - too, historic genealogy as study of our progress - memes, et al.).

- Blogging: see Ajswtlk. Too, redo the survey of progress in this area by others. For instance, Klout's approach makes me think of how there might be a "truth" assessment (to be discussed).

- ...

In terms of computing, most are users. We tried early to get end-user computing. Some, now, call this domain-specific, yet, there is the larger picture. JS (thanks, Sun) brought forth one enabling bit; the whole thing has mushroomed (many different approaches about - just read on Node).

As I look at the long history of computing, things keep getting re-wrote, time and time again. Everyone thinks that their stuff is better (human nature). At some point, though, we will need to have the notion of "proven" brought to bear. And, strength will deal with truth more than not (for a long time, Made-off seemed strong).

Disclosure: We like that apps have grown, without bounds, it seems. But, the larger pictures comes into play here, to boot.

Remarks:   Modified: 01/05/2015

02/25/2014 -- Starting on 02/23/2014, in the evening, I have spent some time (now and then, as I could spend some uninterrupted minutes) doing lessons at Codecademy. As of now, I have completed 48 of these (HTML, jQuery, APIs). What completion means is coding up the example sufficiently to run and to get by the evaluation that allows the next step.

Let's say this. It has been a nice review session. Too, getting back to code, a truism comes to fore (some say that there are two intelligent types - detailed and intuitive -- ignoring Gardner's seven, for now). Detailed is what we see with engineers, programmers, and such. In fact, handling details in that manner deals a lot with deep stuff (far beyond what we see with Watson). Intuitive? Management (a big bucket, for now - but, it deals with things that only humans know, for now - it is arguable that this will continue to be of the essence).

Actually, we need to exercise both. However, I did mention tedium before. Sometimes, interfacing with the machine is rewarding. Most of the time, it stinks (but, doing code is a good opportunity to practice patience, focus, carefulness, ...). Now, can the machine ever match intuition (not talking in the Turing sense, rather int he sense where we need to look at being)? ... Anyway, playing with the lessons was real nice in that things interpreted immediately, once expressed properly. ... There are other things that I want to peek into, but Ruby on Rails is next.

02/26/2014 -- Acknowledgements for Lucio Arteaga.

02/28/2014 -- Edited bullet on blogging. Added in reference to Klout, seen in Bloomberg's Businessweek.

03/03/2014 -- We need to relook at several things. Yes, like, bringing memes (and more) to the fore in the discussion. Mathematicians have their "ancestors," know about them (and their contributions), and honor them. What other field does that? My mathematical pedigree: Galileo Galilei (1585), Vincenzo Viviana (1642) Isaac Barrow (1652), Isaac Newton (1668), Roger Cotes (1706), Robert Smith (1715), Walter Taylor (1723), Steven Whisson (1742), Thomas Postlethwaite (1756), Thomas Jones (1782), Adam Sedgwick (1811), William Hopkins (1830), Arthur Cayley (1864), Andrew Russell Forsyth (1881),  Edmund Taylor Whittaker (1895), G.H. Hardy (), Edward Charles Titchmarsh (), Andrew P. Guinand (), Lucio Arteaga (1964), the blogger (). I took it back to 1585 since that would be co-temporal with those who were involved with the Great Migration to New England. Too, note that the ancestor is an adviser or mentor or tutor. This brings to mind that a meme'tic look at descendancy would consider the influence of step-child-ness. I have found many of these relationships.

01/05/2015 -- Renewal, see Context line.

Truth Engineering, anew

Context: See Tru'eng anew, focus going forward, mathematics.

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The website will be configured. Too, the definition awaits further discussion. However it is technically oriented as shown by the contents of some posts.

The posts being read today are shown in the graphic. This is not unusual.

Perhaps, it is time to bite the bullet and get back to the nitty gritty. People are looking for that (see the below Aside) as confusion abounds. Why? Where do we have any one working on technology (especially "cloud" oriented stuff) whose motivation is for the betterment of mankind as opposed to filling their pockets?

There will be one change in content, though. God will be mentioned from time to time in this context. Generally, it'll be something like "God only knows" or one of those older adages that said a lot (why? - the argument will start with either/or). Perhaps, even "Insha'Allah " will appear. We will see (know, though, that we will argue beyond this limit - Tegmark quoted).

Aside: The blogger grates at the claim by some that they cannot find technical workers (what I think that they mean is that they want some particular skill - which will become dated - that they want to exploit; too, any presence of "conscience" or looking properly at the larger picture is not needed (as in, suppress such since the powerful have shown that such is antithetical to progress - hah! oh, Lord, help us). There is a brief start of a bio at the bro-blog (FEDaerated, see Note at this page on the chimera).

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So, today, I re-looked at "Extrapolation, calibration, truth" (30 Dec 2007 - so, eight years ago; remember those times?). Right on. There have been many such posts, here at Tru'eng and at 7oops7, over the years. But, then, like the whole economy, the largess got me off-track (is not Janet backed into a corner?); we'll get back to things that matter.

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In the meantime, the world has changed quite a bit. A few links will be gathered here which will feature in future posts.

• The Good Judgment Project -  ARPA's support can mean several things. One aspect of "crowd" IQ does revolve around intuition in a collective sense. ... However, in any case, where was this thinking 20 years ago when the WWW was let loose wild and free with ramifications that we are only now being to experience the downside of (how many others detrimental events lurk?)?
• Last year, I played around with Codecademy. It was fun. I did eight of the mini-courses that were available then. I see that others are now there and look to be of interest. Here are some posts about the experience and later work. 
• We would be at fault if big data were not mentioned. So, expect this to be a recurrent theme. 
• ...  

The list is expected to grow as we organize.

Remarks:   Modified: 01/06/2015

01/06/2015 -- Working for other than money? Yes, many (very many can?) do this. ... BTW, this past month, I was in possession, for the first time, of a mobile device that was less than 10" in presentation ability. The endured for about three days. I intend to write about the experience. ... But, all of the attitude that is (has been) displayed by the techies is aerated. Of course, we need behavioral motivators of which hubris counts highly (must it?). So, we have a little more "smarts" in the client which goes against the grain of thinness (which never ought to have happened, anyway) that was a rage for awhile. ... I can see some benefit for a tablet and the smaller companion. It is interesting that MS' Surface is getting some attention by the road warriors. ... So, am I a believer in the Internet of Everything which is, in part, foretold by the mobile things (especially when they are full of sensors and such)? Well, have you looked around and seen all of the security (and other) issues that abound? ... Well, IoT ought to stop, pause, and see what might bolster the basis (by the way, I am available for consulting on such) so that we allow good things to come to fore for our progeny and their's and so on.

01/06/2015 --  Best and brightest: 3rd most read (7'oops7),  1st most read (Tru'eng), 7th most read (FEDaerated). 

Content and more

Content? Yes, would not all of us like to be such?

But, the web works against that blissful state, for various reasons, which will be a continuing theme for this blog (metaphors abound).

In the meantime, we have to consider the management of our information, called content, both on the web and not. Which of those is of a larger size? Some, no doubt, would argue for the former; such are the was of the e-literate.

However, in truth, non-web'd (where web encompasses a whole lot, including those "cloudish" things that are so appealing) is the larger; showing this is one of our tasks.

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Decisions made a couple of years ago resulted in a serious of learning experiences which helped the blogger update his world view. You see, he has been web-izing since its beginning (and, before). Too, he has watched the various newcomers appear, like waves in the ocean. At any point, some of these make a splash (make someone a bunch of money).

Yet, none have really been enough to bring contentment. Until now which we'll go into below. First, though, let's recap.

• The precipitating event as the need to move a website (associated with the TGS) because of Office Live going away. Several people had built processes upon this freebie offered by Microsoft. Having that basis jarred was interesting (several posts). 
• After casting about for some alternative, the site was moved to a hosting facility. However, it was done in a mode that is late 1990s in flavor. Why? Fall back position (important lesson learned long ago while dealing with large, complicated systems). There was some attention paid to tools (this old timer has all sorts of opinions on the matter). Yet, none were attractive (Sea Monkey's Composer felt good, for the time). 
• Later, I started to look at CMS approaches. That took several iterations to get the proper feel. 
• None really clicked. For one thing, databases are overused (we'll go on about that, folks, time and again - any young one listening?). Too, a lot of effort is put into the titillation requirements that seem to be implicit. So, I continued with my static approach. 
• Then, I gave CMS another chance and did a couple of examples. One of these has been used for a What's New for a few months. 
• Of late, I have gotten back to code, thanks to Codecademy (code is a right, rather than being a privilege - yes, I want to know what crap comes down to my browser). During the past sixty days, I have played with several environments. Python still looks good (albeit server related), but I'm not making a decision about the language, yet. Using several languages may be the necessity (due to contextual imperatives).

Today, I took another look at WordPress and was impressed (see showcase examples). So, within the next few days, I will try it again within the context of TGS content and will get back with the specifics. 

Remarks:   Modified: 01/21/2019

04/25/2014 -- Oh yes, Internet shock. The Office Live fallout pales in comparison but is analogous enough for us to use as an example.

08/02/2014 -- Bit the bullet and updated the site (looks, behavior) using HTML/CSS. Of course, things are still pending, such as membership functions, business, ... We'll get there.

05/31/2016 -- Continuation of the theme.

01/21/2019 -- If you look at Content Management or CMS at this blog and the one for the Thomas Gardner Society, Inc. (CMS or Configuration), you will see lots of posts. We have a new site where we prove our work: TGSoc.org. Its role is portal but, for now, we introduce changes there, first. See the Discussion page with a link to our devlog. Based upon the direction I hear that Google is going, working this approach for our portal is right on. So, technical will be visible rather than not.

Khan Academy

Earlier, I touted Codecademy (here and there). There are plenty of places where one can go and learn computer languages on-line. I liked that they were free, that they had an interesting collection of languages to look at, and that they provided the testing desktop in the browser.

Aside: Of course, my case is not the norm. If you search on 10 programming languages that will not die (Lisp, Pascal, PL/1, ...), I have worked in 7 of those (plus many dozens of other languages and environments in situations that could be called production - meaning, post release with real users doing actual work that relied upon the results provided by the computer system - err, app - the modern wannabe).

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Today, I was searching on a technical topic and ran across Khan Academy (KA). I had seen them before as I was watching mathematics lectures at Stanford, Harvard, and MIT. That is, today, all subjects of note are accessible.

Aside: When I earlier ran across a KA video, it was interesting. But, at the time, I wasn't so much trying to learn something; no, I was watching the classroom situation (2012, Osgood's lectures - note the Remarks during the period) across different milieus (to be discussed) and how it influences delivery/discussion, etc. (2012, Wildberger).

Aside: Before going further, let me tout Wikipedia which is the first place for me as I search. Actually, it's Google, but, for the most part, a Wikipedia article pops up early in the stack. Wikipedia is getting some press. For instance, the Economist showed, recently, a tapestry that had been made from the Wikipedia page on the Magna Carta.

But, after looking at KA today, I am going to go there often. Why? It is a great place to jump to a "101" (not meaning the highway on the West Coast - love it) view. Earlier, I probably bounced back from its K-12 framework. But, there are plenty of new topics that are beyond high school.

Too, I looked at the "Computing" pages. Very nice. Businessweek just did a special issue on code. It was written/edited by one person, Paul Ford. Very unusual tactic. But, it worked. I actually bought the paper copy after seeing the issue on-line.

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Okay. What does KA bring that is more than the others? It covers a slew of disciplines. And, we all know that it is not shameful for one to look at 101 material for any discipline that is outside of one's usual work. In fact, going to that view can lead to suggestions about additional material (as we see on Wikipedia).

At the top line, click on Subject, and you will see a fairly good representation of things that ought to be in one's mixture of knowledge. So, the material may seem elementary to the expert, but any, but a node-it-all, ought to find something of interest.

There is another perspective. All of these topics have been studied by those who teach them; the teacher-to-be ran the gamut from 101 to the end of the learning process as defined by the particular discipline. So, you might look at the material to get some notion of what is involved.

If you think of yourself as learning about the basics of a subject, then you will have the right mindset for enjoying KA (that is, if you're older and set in your little knowledge sphere). As well, you will see the general view of the topic; albeit, those who might have evolved and adopted a worldview over a period of time might benefit from going back and seeing the fundamentals, from time to time.

Actually, science, in its proper mode, would require that. Axioms and other assumptions seem to get hidden, almost as a general rule.

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Any enthusiasm that one can perceive in this post's message came about from two areas: computing and math. Computing has some examples, with code, that ought to avail one of successful understanding even if one must provide one's own workbench. In the math area, the collection of post-high-school topics is nice (say, multivariate calculus and pick gradient - same subject, at Wikipedia - someone put a link to the KA site - same subject at Wolfram's collection by Eric Weisstein), albeit sparsely, somewhat, covered right now.

One can easily look toward a continued expansion on each subject. And, extending out toward the first couple years of college would be a boon. Of course, it has taken Wikipedia years to collect their material (all entered by volunteer authors). So, KA will be interesting to watch and to review from time to time.

Remarks:   Modified: 06/25/2015

06/25/2015 --

Quora com

I am interposing a post between the "Many truths" and the followup. Why? To get back in touch with the world of computing as seen by the younger set and everyone else.

You see, I have mentioned Codecademy, Khan Academy, and others. Yet, none of these pulled me in. Recently, I looked more closely at Quora. I had run across it earlier and liked some of the answers of which many were in a good tone.

In other words, the questions and answers, many times, depicted some bit of awareness and intelligence. You see, I had been working Wikipedia, but there are the constraints (neutral point of view, no original work, etc.). Quora has none of that though there are some rules.

In particular, topics in Quora bear directly to what I am (have been) doing here. In fact, my monologue (ongoing, tedious) can now be beefed up. I'll start by looking at two questions, by category.

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Coding - All sorts of questions deal with this subject. For one of them, many answers to what master programmers need to know (best-kept secrets of the great), were too low level. They were from a CS viewpoint, as in from the lowest view that one could take (thinking that CS rests upon computer and electrical engineering, okay?). But, domain, and higher-order, thinking does not slough along in lower-level code. No, we need domain tools, etc. And, those who might want to strut around because they can code might also want to consider that problem solving consists of more than what might be computed. Best answer (to be discussed).

Truth - The breadth of the questions is astounding. And, the answers, again, many times are wonderful within a wide range. Best answer (to be discussed) to "What is truth?"

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There are many other questions of note. We will get to those, say intelligence, mathematics, science, and such.

What took the old man so long? I had to follow my own autodidact quest even if it was within my own infinite space as from there I could observe.

As an aside: a dream from 30 years ago is apropos to the theme (running across Quora resolved the quandary).

Remarks:   Modified: 08/04/2015

08/01/2015 -- My Quora Profile.

08/03/2015 -- George as inspiration of computing and existentialism.

08/04/2015 -- Georges M. Autodidact Extraordinaire. [From this am: Had started to add Georges Metanomski as an encourager. Left a post in an incomplete state (reminders: on links, put spaces to keep from activating - as a human could close it if they wanted; too, figure some minimum amount of words to leave - as in, go from the digital world of wannabes, to the real world of being, ...). Quora deleted this which was pointed to from FB; and, sent a warning about spam (stupid bot as a human would see that I loathe the commercialization - there, I said it - of the web/cloud). ... Either, they'll return things to normal, or I'll work another method after recapping my 1 week experience.]