I disagree that the author considers "real world knowledge" the only kind of useful knowledge. If you read the preceding entry on "The Agony of Grad School" it clarifies that the main problem here is this person has a really high cost for context switching, plus a really low tolerance for distraction. That's a bad combination, because you end up thrashing all the time. In the preceding entry, he talks about how he wants to know what's going on in a theory of programming languages course (not really "real world knowledge" ;) but he can't due to the context switch overhead from real analysis.
It sounds like the author unfortunately hit a place that requires more classes and teaching before getting to the point where research becomes the full time 100% job.
It also sounds like the author was trying to take several courses and be a teaching assistant at the same time. That's a lot of work for anyone, even people who are good at multi-tasking.
I suppose I was wrong about the author's reasoning, but I still think my description applies to many people.
Personally, I think both camps have their problems. Academic people can be quite annoying when they talk about something like they know everything about it just because they've read some paper about it. On the other hand programmers knowing only one language and framework are equally limited in their view.
I feel the author is saying that knowledge should be tested against reality. The test should not be a quiz administered in a closed classroom. Knowledge should lead to outcomes in the real world. It should be hardened against the real world.
From the article:
"Ph.D. students should spend most of their time doing real, publishable research alongside their professors, working as apprentices."
Most computer science PhD programs I know of have as a goal to get you to this point. Well, sometimes you end up working alongside your peers instead of seeing your professor. Different places do have different ideas about how early in grad school you finish classes and how many you need, but after that research is your full time job.
yeah, everything I know about CS Grad School says that classes are a necessary formality. For the most part, TAing is too. Grad students live to do research
If this works out, this is a big breakthrough. One of the encryption schemes described in the paper also looks like it should be reasonably efficient to implement (the scheme "E_1"). That scheme doesn't give you everything you'd need for fully homomorphic encryption, but it is part of the way there.
"tos_msg" -- interesting that Google is picking up on TinyOS and suggesting the term accordingly. May be an indication that they weight universities highly, since TinyOS started as a university project?
I've heard many people quote Hamming about "work only on important problems," but fewer seem to notice the caveat he has in the talk:
"We didn't work on (1) time travel, (2) teleportation, and (3) antigravity. They are not important problems because we do not have an attack. It's not the consequence that makes a problem important, it is that you have a reasonable attack."
This makes the notion of "important problem" specific to you. In other words, dependent on your particular skills and interests, not on some external measure of worth. So even if you are working on something more "modest," say, what scat tells us about migration patterns of bobcats, that still counts as an "important problem" since you have an attack and can solve it.
Under this reading, Hamming's advice is close to the other famous nugget, "do only what only you can do" (Dijkstra). That is never the way I see it being used in conversation, however. Usually I see it in the context of encouraging people to work on some Big Problem that may not be a good fit for their skills and interest -- which is one of the quickest ways to encourage failure.
The "special extra credit" makes me think this question is fishing to see whether the candidate can step back and look at the big picture. That's part of the job of being in R&D, no matter where you stand on the research to development spectrum. One of the reasons companies keep R&D departments is to have people around who are technically knowledgeable _and_ who have the vision to think ahead about where the company should go next.
The fact that it's about code quality is an artifact. Yes, as others have pointed out, a question about code may not be so relevant if your candidate is a theorist or will have a role with no development. Still, because most or all candidates will have experience with bad code, and because fewer will have intimate knowledge of the business at hand, it's a better question than "so, where do you think our company should go in three to five years?"
Suggest working on how you're going to meet people now -- figure out which events you'll want to go to, which places to hang out, etc. That will help with contacts, which in turn should help with picking up consulting or a formal internship. You can then use this to help plan where you want to live and whether you need a car. Also, as pointed out in the thread, some venues are regrettably 21+.
In particular, a lot of events happen on the peninsula in the Palo Alto/Mountain View area. For example, SuperHappyDevHouse is something you probably want to attend, and it's recently been at places like Sun. While getting there by CalTrain is possible, you can't stay late without being badly stranded. So if you find yourself wanting to visit places in that area, you will want access to a car. Bringing your own is an option, there's also car sharing services like ZipCar or CityCarShare.
You might also find it fun to drop by Noisebridge, a hacker space near 16th and Mission, to see what's happening. Circuit hacking every monday!
http://www.noisebridge.net
(disclosure: I'm the secretary and a member)
Overall, you are not crazy, but do some prep work by reaching out to potential contacts, setting up meetings, and figuring out the right events now. While the Bay Area _is_ the kind of place where you can walk into a cafe, meet someone random, and then walk out with an incredible conversation that leads to your next opportunity, you will get a lot more out of your summer if you work it ahead of time. Posting here is a good start, but you probably want to do some investigation more closely targeted to your web project idea.
Oakland is a fine place to live, and I live there, but you have to watch the transit situation when living there. If you are too far from a BART or an express cross-bay bus, you will burn a lot of time waiting for bus transfers. See 511.org or Google Transit when researching potential places to live.
0) Stylish sunglasses that act like the spexware in Bruce Sterling's stories, or like the smart glasses in Charlie Stross's _Accelerando_. I'd love heads up displays showing me peoples' names, maps, appointments, and all the stuff for which I currently rely on my phone.
The hardware is there if you're willing to pay. I recently learned about research in this direction aimed at helping patients with Alzheimer's (they also use audio prompts, as well). I don't know of anyone who has packaged up everything and written software to make this seamless, easy, and fun.
It sounds like the author unfortunately hit a place that requires more classes and teaching before getting to the point where research becomes the full time 100% job. It also sounds like the author was trying to take several courses and be a teaching assistant at the same time. That's a lot of work for anyone, even people who are good at multi-tasking.