Although one of the most prominent critics of online education is the lack of in-person bonding, programming culture thrives in the virtual world. Hacker culture is legend, probably best proven by how hackers are treated in movies. For students, this community is where they find solutions to their programming problems, guidance and good sources, and teammates. For established programmers, they find... well, the same.
The existence of such an online culture doesn't necessarily prove that purely online interaction can successfully result in learning opportunities and inter-personal interaction for everyone though, as this culture's audience is self-selectively comfortable with online communication. This self-selectivity is one of the reasons that CS attracts a very biased group of people; if you can't learn online well, learning to program without a real-life teacher is going to be difficult.
One of the pinnacles of CS culture is the hackathon--a group of programmers and engineers sit down in groups for 24 hours (or some long length of time) and hack together some project. Usually this is organized and paid for by a company (Facebook, Google, Microsoft) looking for innovations built on their product or just hoping to attract possible brilliant future employees. Hackathons become a hub of recruitment, networking, and learning.
The virtual hackathon, an inevitable invention, takes on a slightly different from the physical version. They often transform into week- or month-long competitions, like Google's Science Fair or other online competition. Online loses the close-knit and fervent atmosphere hacking seems to require, in favor of mysterious and intimidating super-talented coding championships. While hackathons and hacker culture can be very inviting in real life, the virtual equivalent frightens away most outsiders. At least, this had been my experience.
This shift between styles of hackathon points to a difference between the virtual and physical cultures of CS. I imagine this slight difference affects not only this field, but many others that attempt to branch out into the virtual space. This brings up an unanswerable question about the effect of online education on the future face of human knowledge.
I leave you on that positive note.
The existence of such an online culture doesn't necessarily prove that purely online interaction can successfully result in learning opportunities and inter-personal interaction for everyone though, as this culture's audience is self-selectively comfortable with online communication. This self-selectivity is one of the reasons that CS attracts a very biased group of people; if you can't learn online well, learning to program without a real-life teacher is going to be difficult.
One of the pinnacles of CS culture is the hackathon--a group of programmers and engineers sit down in groups for 24 hours (or some long length of time) and hack together some project. Usually this is organized and paid for by a company (Facebook, Google, Microsoft) looking for innovations built on their product or just hoping to attract possible brilliant future employees. Hackathons become a hub of recruitment, networking, and learning.
The virtual hackathon, an inevitable invention, takes on a slightly different from the physical version. They often transform into week- or month-long competitions, like Google's Science Fair or other online competition. Online loses the close-knit and fervent atmosphere hacking seems to require, in favor of mysterious and intimidating super-talented coding championships. While hackathons and hacker culture can be very inviting in real life, the virtual equivalent frightens away most outsiders. At least, this had been my experience.
This shift between styles of hackathon points to a difference between the virtual and physical cultures of CS. I imagine this slight difference affects not only this field, but many others that attempt to branch out into the virtual space. This brings up an unanswerable question about the effect of online education on the future face of human knowledge.
I leave you on that positive note.
As someone who puts on events like that myself, I have also shied away from virtual events, partially due to the loss of close knit connections like you discuss.
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