>But what was the point of contrasting his “glossy black hair” with the white hair of MIT’s Grimson/Guttag? Very cheap shot, and not even subtly ageist.

They know their audience.

Also, FWIW, I completed MIT’s Intro to Programming with Python on edX before I took CS50, and recommend that learners get a decent grasp of programming principles with a higher-level language (spending a week with Scratch doesn’t really count) before diving into C with its pointers, manual memory management, etc.

Honestly, although in a self-paced MOOC format you can probably get away with it, the MIT 6.001 course really isn't the place to learn programming, programming environments, etc. for the first time either. It doesn't ostensibly require programming background, but it's at a far different pace and level than the actual "intro to programming" course I took way back when in college--and I had even had a programming course in high school which was fairly unusual at the time.

ADDED: I'm also not sure what to think about C in an intro course in this day and age. Sure, as a CS major, or even as part of a good programming curriculum, understanding some of what's going on under the covers is important. But that feels like a Level 2-ish topic at this point.

You’re actually right, I had also taken very basic “intro” courses locally before taking the MIT course, and Grimson was the first person to explain Big O to me. Having already done some Python and C++ probably helped get more out of that course, as well.

But some people can’t drop thousands or even hundreds of dollars to have a prof or TA hold their hand as they learn programming essentials. They might have to put in more time on their own to do well in a course like 6.001, but that may be their only option. They could do Udemy courses, but the quality there seems to vary quite a bit (whereas with edX there’s some built-in vetting), and a complete beginner may be overwhelmed by the number of choices.

I really liked 6.001 but I already have a fair bit of programming experience although I don't do it professionally and am not a CS major--so I got a lot out of it. MIT has a doubtless deserved reputation as being a bit of a firehose but even so, I can't imagine showing up on campus (during normal times) and learning the basics of programming including even the basics of using a command line on the side while taking not only 6.001 but an otherwise full course load.

Charles Severance's Intro course from U Michigan is a nice Intro to Python MOOC course that's geared to genuine beginners.

Thanks for recommending the Michigan course! I have mentored/tutored in the past but am currently too busy. If people contact me regarding lessons, I can politely redirect them to that course.

I second this approach. Helped me get more out of CS50.

Ageist against whom? Gray hair isn't a problem image-wise if you are a professor nor is youth. I think the writer is just painting a picture.

Yeah, normally as quick to comment on casual ageism as anyone. But, in this case, it's the New Yorker and I think they're just humanizing the story. (And, per another comment, with respect to "knowing their audience" I expect the New Yorker readership skews relatively old.)

Humanizing the story via insulting/encouraging ageism toward a former MIT Chancellor (Grimson), and/or another well-known MIT Prof (Guttag) who is an expert in diverse CS sub-fields and has collaborated with the likes of Barbara Liskov? Given how long they’ve both been teaching and doing research, and how much cross-pollination there is between Harvard and MIT, it’s very likely both of them were influences on Malan himself.

FWIW, my wife also found Prof. Grimson to be “too monotone” and asked me “how do you stay awake during those lectures?” but without bringing age into it.

Side rant: I am the child of baby boomers, and I think their generation had it much easier than we do. I also get infuriated with the callousness and lack of empathy exhibited by many people from the Boomer generation. But rude retorts like “OK Boomer”, aside from being disrespectful, only encourage further callousness and lack of empathy.

I hate to read such articles. I don’t understand why they are so popular in the Anglosphere. It always comes off as if I am reading a failed fiction writer, not a journalist.

The New Yorker in particular is more literary than journalistic. Not the magazine to read if you want "just the facts."

I don't exactly know how to explain why I like this writing style, but I really do. I even subscribed to the New Yorker for several years but ended up canceling when I realized how far behind I was falling in reading it. The dang thing comes every week and is at a high enough average quality level that each issue is worth reading cover to cover.

Also, a decent chunk of the content in the magazine is actual fiction by actual accomplished fiction writers (not "failed" ones). You don't tend to see it linked from HN obviously, but that's very much the vibe they're going for. Think of it as part commentary on the times and part literary fiction magazine. That may not be your cup of tea but it is appealing to lots of people.

I think it's a subtle way to hint that CS50 is cool and hip to younger folks, whereas to younger folks, the old and less technically savvy MOOC felt less engaging. I don't agree, I just think new Yorker used it to contrast the courses.

The harder story to tell that this piece is avoiding because of the difficulty is the institutional dynamics. It's hinted at in the article more or less directly, but the entire mindset at many places is so far from what's conveyed in this New Yorker piece that it sort of misses the ball completely.

At the time the story in this article begins, administrators at many places were completely unfamiliar with the general idea behind open content distribution. In such places, online systems for course content were seen as a way of locking down the intellectual property that courses represent, not to distribute it. Where I was at, faculty were explicitly admonished not to distribute any online course material because it was seen as leaking university IP. Course management systems were seen as a way to deliver materials online securely so as to ensure that they weren't widely distributed. Even if someone wanted to put the effort into something that might now be called a MOOC, it was doubly frowned upon because you were putting effort into teaching rather than research (especially if you were untenured), and triply so because you were putting effort into distributing courses online, which was a fringe activity.

By the time MOOCs came about and got a lot of press, and many of us were sort of shaking our heads at what seemed inevitable, it was a little too little too late. In online space, where social factors like reputation become amplified 100-fold, it's difficult to compete or add to the reputational weight of places like MIT or Harvard. Adding to this was the constant monetizing mindset, of trying to lock down materials, not recognizing the advertising/popularizing role that open content distribution enables. Then too was a sort of "so what" feeling, because in the absence of something like a pandemic, who really cares, from the perspective of the administration -- students come to campus and that's where the dollars come from; MOOCs and online course distribution of whatever form were seen as experimental, the realm of the extension service which is valued but only to a point.

There's lots of issues the piece doesn't get into, or only gets into in a half-hearted way, which is how these types of online teaching dynamics really mess with the traditional structures. So instead of having an interesting conversation about how unfamiliar it is for universities to be dealing with Course A at Institution 1 competing with Course B at Institution 2, it recapitulates the discussion in terms of Malan, which misses the bigger picture entirely. These issues are not about one instructor of one course at one university.

Maybe I'm just getting jaded, but I feel like this piece does a disservice to the behemoth of problems at universities represented by the online instructional debacle we've witnessed. Like lots of things, the pandemic is exposing widespread systemic problems, not creating them.

Even MIT, which was pretty early on to online content with OCW, if you look at some of the early statements and materials, was very clearly positioned as raw materials to help teachers assemble their own courses. There was very little audio or video. It was pretty clear that MIT was taking some care to not release something that was potentially competitive with even auditing an actual MIT class.

When was this? Not doubting you but by the time I came across OCW in 2012 there were quite a few courses with video lectures, at least you could cover the standard frosh year curriculum with videos and much of the year 1 CS courses. So that gets you an "associates" worth of CS content right there, and this was before I recall MOOCs being a hot topic more broadly.

There are also still quite a few MIT courses that have course websites/YouTube channels with videos but are not linked to on OCW nor adapted for edX. At least I've taken 3 such courses in the last couple years. So I don't think they are being strict about distribution either.

Early 2000s (so about a decade earlier). Here's a quote from then-MIT president on introducing OCW.

MIT President Charles Vest said that “We are not providing an MIT education on the Web. We are providing our core materials that are the infrastructure that undergirds an MIT education. Real education requires interaction, the interaction that is part of American teaching. We think that OpenCourseWare will make it possible for faculty here and elsewhere to concentrate even more on the actual process of teaching, on the interactions between faculty and students that are the real core of learning.”

ADDED: Video was not nearly as democratized at the time. YouTube wasn't founded until 2005.

Interesting, thanks for the info! I think the statement could still apply even with videos available, but of course it is also in MIT's best interest to say this.

Honestly I really like the idea of using OCW materials to run a course, I'd have loved something like that instead of the AP program in high school. It's too bad the original intended use didn't catch on (or at least I've never seen it used that way).

I don’t think the intention was to deliver a cheap shot, or at least I hope not. In many ways I liked MIT’s courses better but the contrast is clear. Ideally in the future everything will be online (at least partially) and students will be guided towards the style that serves them best. I have an in-person degree from a top public school with nearly 40k students and I also have an online cs degree from a mid level public school. I can do without the big lecture halls that have 300+ students. Just let me watch the video on my own schedule. I crave the small discussion sections where I can ask questions, draw on a board, hear other students questions etc...