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from the does-it-count-as-a-foreign-language dept.
Mark Guzdial at ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) writes:
I have three reasons for thinking that learning CS is different than learning other STEM disciplines.
- Our infrastructure for teaching CS is younger, smaller, and weaker;
- We don't realize how hard learning to program is;
- CS is so valuable that it changes the affective components of learning.
The author makes compelling arguments to support the claims, ending with:
We are increasingly finding that the emotional component of learning computing (e.g., motivation, feeling of belonging, self-efficacy) is among the most critical variables. When you put more and more students in a high-pressure, competitive setting, and some of whom feel "like" the teacher and some don't, you get emotional complexity that is unlike any other STEM discipline. Not mathematics, any of the sciences, or any of the engineering disciplines are facing growing numbers of majors and non-majors at the same time. That makes learning CS different and harder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @02:27PM
Some of us have increasing misgivings about the utility of the US dollar as a currency for all but the very rich. Some of us aren't interested in speculation but in having currency that isn't controlled and manipulated for the benefit of the very rich. If I want to buy from a merchant that Visa and Mastercard do not want me to buy from, well, I'm fucked if all I have is US dollars/Euros/Pounds/etc.
People used to be able to write checks to each other to transfer US dollars. While it's definitely time for something better than checks to come along, Visa and Mastercard are not democratized systems like people writing each other checks. Cash, of course, is only useful in person.
Some of us may be getting interested in cryptocurrencies because we're interested in secession from the new aristocracy. (Look at the train wreck the convergence before November 2018 between the Fear Encryption Narrative, the Misogynerd Narrative, and the Literally Hitler Narrative will prove to be. It won't go well for the D-team, but that fits the pattern of the past few emperors of the USA. Always in years 2-4 congress is controlled by the emperor's team. The reliability of this pattern should concern you.)
But yeah, if the only thing you can see looking at bitcoin is a capitalist investor shark feeding frenzy or if all you see is a get-rich-quick scheme, then yeah, I would highly suggest staying away from cryptocurrencies. It will be mutually beneficial that way.