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The most important thing I learned in college for programming was from a linguistics class
We took ordinary language and parsed it into syntax trees
Start with the words in a sentence, draw the branches up, make a tree, done
We took ordinary language and parsed it into syntax trees
Start with the words in a sentence, draw the branches up, make a tree, done
We did a bunch of exercises on it, and now I can't help but see tree structures in things
This is immensely useful in programming, where understanding ASTs and precedence is critical, perhaps more so than natural language
This is immensely useful in programming, where understanding ASTs and precedence is critical, perhaps more so than natural language
I never learned anything like that in any of my CS classes. Not even the theory of CS - we learned about the different types of grammars, but never applied it to actual programming languages.
"OK, so take this linear sequence, and imagine it's tree representation, now take the topmost element,"
may be the most valuable thing my brain got taught in all of college
may be the most valuable thing my brain got taught in all of college
(this is now a thread about things I learned in non-CS classes that are more useful for programming than CS classes)
General chemistry: limiting reagents in a chemical reaction. If you need 3X and 2Y to make a Z and you have 100000X but only 4Y, you're only making 2Z.
This is directly applicable to performance optimization, and (IMO) an easier formulation than Amdahl's Law.
This is directly applicable to performance optimization, and (IMO) an easier formulation than Amdahl's Law.
Organic chemistry:
Having someone require you to drill your brain for thousands of hours on weird spatial rotations and shape changes and the inherent rules for it...
... actually trains you pretty well for pure functional programming.
Having someone require you to drill your brain for thousands of hours on weird spatial rotations and shape changes and the inherent rules for it...
... actually trains you pretty well for pure functional programming.
Biochemistry:
Same deal, but this time we're way more complicated. You get to understand that simple laws in genchem get too complex to understand from first principles, and you have to black-box the system to have a hope of understanding it.
Same deal, but this time we're way more complicated. You get to understand that simple laws in genchem get too complex to understand from first principles, and you have to black-box the system to have a hope of understanding it.
Ecology:
A complex system doesn't care about what you want or think of it. Parts of the system evolve and grow to take on responsibilities you never thought of, and tinkering with a system carelessly can have effects you never imagined.
A complex system doesn't care about what you want or think of it. Parts of the system evolve and grow to take on responsibilities you never thought of, and tinkering with a system carelessly can have effects you never imagined.
Literature courses:
It's fun to write complex works of art, but these are generally inaccessible. Most people don't genuinely like them, but they claim to for status.
If you want to have impact, prefer absolute simplicity and save the complexity for the most crucial part.
It's fun to write complex works of art, but these are generally inaccessible. Most people don't genuinely like them, but they claim to for status.
If you want to have impact, prefer absolute simplicity and save the complexity for the most crucial part.
Russian language:
Holy shit, having a syntax *designed* for a language is so much nicer than borrowing a syntax for some other language.
Holy shit, having a syntax *designed* for a language is so much nicer than borrowing a syntax for some other language.
Women's studies:
Other people's experiences are markedly and dramatically different from yours, along almost every axis, in ways that can and will surprise you. Listen to them and take them seriously.
Other people's experiences are markedly and dramatically different from yours, along almost every axis, in ways that can and will surprise you. Listen to them and take them seriously.
Psychology:
People are often wrong about almost everything, but especially themselves.
This is not a good reason to not take them seriously.
People are often wrong about almost everything, but especially themselves.
This is not a good reason to not take them seriously.
