<p>UCB - It is true many are taking that class. However, it is considered very interesting and creative. Something like 80% of graduating English majors have taken the class. It is not an easy class and a Java programmer told me one could technically get a programming job with just that class because they have learnt enough. I am sure it helps every type of major land a job in the software world because they understand the jargon and the process.</p>
<p>Re: #141</p>
<p>I agree that it is a good thing for students in general to have knowledge of CS. However, since one of the vaguely hinted at concerns that the OP’s son has at Stanford seemed to be that he is surrounded by engineering and CS majors, perhaps the high enrollment in CS 106A may be giving him an erroneous impression about the distribution of majors there.</p>
<p>I guess we will have no more input from the OP</p>
<p>UCB - There are distribution requirements at Stanford. CS106A meets one such requirement.</p>
<p>GER: DB-EngrAppSci</p>
<p>CS 106A is only one of numerous courses that meets that breadth requirement. Note that there are also several CS courses for non-majors that are offered that fulfill it.</p>
<p><a href=“Stanford University Explore Courses”>Stanford University Explore Courses;
<p>Yes many do. There is no rush by 90% to take them though. :p</p>
<p>It is possible they are not all undergrads. Graduate students can register for the same class with one less credit value, 5 vs 4.</p>
<p>texaspg said in #139
</p>
<p>Personally, I think that true intellectuals believe that scholarship in literature or history (as well as in the sciences) is part of the “real world.” Taking it to an extreme, they would probably believe that serious scholarship in literature or history is more real than much of what passes for “the real world.”</p>
<p>The basketball example mentioned by texaspg is interesting. It seems to fit with the Stanford definition of intellectualism. It doesn’t seem that much more intellectual to me than spreadsheet analysis.</p>
<p>" It doesn’t seem that much more intellectual to me than spreadsheet analysis. "</p>
<p>I do suspect by that definition you will never be an intellectual. Most of science is spreadsheet analysis. It is like saying no scientist will ever be an intellectual.</p>
<p>Um. Well. Yes, I use some spreadsheets sometimes, but not often. Your statement that “Most of science is spreadsheet analysis” my be true to the extent that most of science is biological or medical. The physical sciences don’t use spreadsheet analysis much at all, in my experience or my colleagues’ experience.</p>
<p>Ok, are you fighting to be included as an intellectual when you make that you don’t use math? </p>
<p>By no means I am one! :D</p>
<p>Of course, I use math all the time. However, mainly I do analytical derivations or work with programs like Mathematica in my research. I wouldn’t use a spreadsheet to do much of any of the math I do.</p>
<p>Then there are people who do really heavy duty computing, for whom spreadsheets are next to useless.</p>
<p>You people sound like you are completely unfamiliar with the extensive intellectual history of spreadsheets. Luca Pacioli, the 15th Century popularizer of double book-entry accounting developed almost 300 years earlier in Florence, was treated as equal in importance to Copernicus and Columbus by no less a figure than Spengler, the German Romantic historian. Pacioli was a mathematician and geometer, and a close associate of Leonardo da Vinci. There has been a significant debate among historians as to whether capitalism would have been possible without double book-entry accounting.</p>
<p>By “spreadsheet analysis,” I meant analyses done by current users of spreadsheets, as opposed to the work of the inventor of spreadsheets, and the earlier inventor of double book-entry accounting. Got to love those Florentine bankers!</p>
<p>Among my friends, there used to be a discussion of the “Einstein award of order n,” where n was the number of years that it would have taken before someone else had the same idea. It is interesting to consider n for various discoveries and inventions.</p>
<p>My friends also came up with the “Lysenko award of order n,” based on how many years science was set back by a person’s work. Actually, recent discoveries in epigenetics suggest that Lamarck and Lysenko were not totally dead wrong (just mainly wrong), but that there is more mutability in gene expression than had originally been thought.</p>
<p>"Then there are people who do really heavy duty computing, for whom spreadsheets are next to useless. "</p>
<p>You are mistaken about what computing power it took to come up with this new method. Just because you “assumed” it took a spreadsheet does not make your assumption right. I was going along with it to see why you would trivialize a major accomplishment that NBA teams are willing to spend millions on to try out as coming out of some silly spreadsheet someone might have used.</p>
<p>Suffice it to say it is a proprietary tool for topological data analysis that requires a ridiculous amount of computing power, developed for an entirely different purpose.</p>
<p>The brief description of the new algorithm did not make it sound very complex topologically. Since it is proprietary, I assume I cannot examine it to see how “hard” it is from a mathematical standpoint.</p>
<p>NBA teams have a lot of money to throw around. I wouldn’t rate the complexity of anything based on how much an NBA team was willing to spend on it.</p>
<p>The person you mentioned is a genius at commercialization, however.</p>
<p>When you say “a ridiculous amount of computing power,” what do you mean? Blue Waters?</p>
<p>texaspg, #156, actually, I did not assume that the person you mentioned was using spreadsheets to come up with the means of classifying basketball positions. Rather, my discussion of spreadsheets was based on your comment,
</p>
<p>“NBA teams have a lot of money to throw around. I wouldn’t rate the complexity of anything based on how much an NBA team was willing to spend on it.”</p>
<p>I am really baffled by this. Is there a 10 year old playing with QM’s computer?</p>
<p>"Most of science is spreadsheet analysis. "</p>
<p>Like I said, I was playing along to see why you would assume it is something people can figure out using spreadsheets.</p>