Presentation Preferences

We are asked to reflect on "the variety of presentations for [the course] material – the lecture, the links (especially to wikipedia entries), videos and podcasts. Which work best (or worst) for you, and why?"

My response is that I like the variety.

Bruce's YouTube videos have been very helpful for the hands-on exercises. The UA CBT podcasts/videos have not been quite as helpful. A lot of the time, the visual was like a PowerPoint slide and the content was not particularly illuminating. The speaker (Arthur what's his name) has a cheerful presentation style though.

I've been surprised at how many of the links are to Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a questionable reputation in general academia but it seems like for computer science / open source related topics it must be considered more reputable. I guess that makes some sense when you think about it. The hackers are the ones who know about open source and there's a strong tradition of sharing information and documenting open source stuff - therefore the Wikipedia entries in this area are probably pretty reliable.

As someone else noted in an earlier unit, many of the readings - especially the more technical ones related to specific commands - are like reading a dictionary. Rather tedious and much of it hard to follow and make sense of...

My favorite readings so far are Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning Was The Command Line" and “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” by Eric Raymond. They both are written in such an enjoyable, humorous and thought-provoking style but have so much information about the open source movement - the history, the people, the key philosophies and controversies, etc. I think I'll go back to those readings in the future "just for the fun of it". Eric Raymond's lessons or "aphorisms about effective open source development" can be applied to other efforts at collaborative initiatives and innovation in general.

It's all rather overwhelming, both in volume of information and things to read and do. I have a really hard time keeping up. (I haven't been back to look at other classmates' blog in several weeks!) Also, I'm often concerned as to whether I'm really internalizing the content, really learning it. Nevertheless, I think this course is really "stretching" my brain and I'm quite enjoying the experience.