I cannot understand how a software engineering course may be specific to SaaS, but if you put SaaS in the name, please try to add some SaaS related themes to the course.

But the most surprising part of the outline is that the course is basically a learn ruby for web programming. The only part remotely related to software engineering are weeks four and five, but even in that chapters the material seems to have been chosen for trendiness rather than for teaching.

So if you want to understand what is software engineering, read any edition of Pressman instead of taking this course.

Finally, to Prof. Ng: a big thanks from Barcelona. It was great to go back to university and to find such a wonderful teacher.

This is extremely important if the pupil has previous experience. It is a torture for a pupil to go through a class in which he already knows the content (because of previous classes or professional experience) and the current educational system is not flexible enough to allow pupils to pass courses without being formally evaluated.

And as well as some pupils need a fast track procedure that allows them to reduce the time needed to get a degree, the university needs a defined model for pupils interested in a slower pace because personal or professional issues, so why do universities need to schedule classes around semesters?

Greenspun has some opinions about all of this and I agree with some of them. The current university model is old and does not make sense any longer, but more importantly  the current model is as teacher centred as it was in XI century and it should change to be pupil centred.

The most interesting part comes next. I never studied SVM in my university years so it will be a new area for me. I expect this will help me to understand how easy is the course for people without previous machine learning skills. I’ll keep you updated.

Also the big news is Stanford has anounced new courses for 2012:

• CS 101 by Nick Parlante @ cs101-class.org
• Natural Language Processing by Dan Jurafsky and Chris Manning @ nlp-class.org
• Software Engineering for SAAS by Armando Fox and David Patterson @ saas-class.org
• Human-Computer Interfaces by Scott Klemmer @ hci-class.org
• Game Theory by Matthew Jackson and Yoav Shoham @ game-theory-class.org
• Probabilistic Graphical Models by Daphne Koller @ pgm-class.org
• Machine Learning by Andrew Ng @ jan2012.ml-class.org (Same class as current ml-class.org)
• Cryptography by Dan Boneh @ crypto-class.org
• Lean Launchpad by Steve Blank @ launchpad-class.org
• Technology Entrepreneurship by Chuck Eesley @ venture-class.org

I really like the diversity of the courses (from soft skills like enterpreneurship to math like game theory, including a course about human computer interfaces).

I would like to sign up for the Software Engineering course, but I’ll need to find some extra time for it.

And I find the remote learning experience gratifying. I have to thank Professor Ng for the quality of the materials, as well as the high level of the teaching: theoretical lessons are crystal clear, exercises are perfectly described, the Q&A support is excellent and the submitting system for programming exercises is godsend.

I have to recognise how difficult would have been to go through this course alone. But with the support of the Q&A web area is fairly easy to move forward. So, for now, I think this kind web teaching is perfectly possible, but some kind of support is needed for people without any previous experience. Web Q&A is ok, but for novices, local study groups are completely necessary.

So, after finishing the first batch of Octave exercise, let’s go for the next lesson: Logistic Regression.

What really surprised me ware the buttons in the video player to speed up the video to x1.2 or x1.5. When I first discovered it I though it was crazy to speed up a training video, but after trying it I discovered I can follow the class at x1.2 without any problem, and I will start with x1.5 shortly.

I’m even staring to think it helps me to be more focused on the lesson.

During my university years I was really into AI, and at that time Machine Learning was not as present as it is today (we did a great neural network course, and of course Bayes and decision trees) but the curricula was centred around classic AI, so this is a good opportunity to learn new techniques and have a good time.

Secondly, this will be my first academic non classroom based course. I’ve gone through different corporate distance learning, but never a university course and I’m highly interested in checking how it works.

Finally, I want to see how university courses work in the states. During my university years we (students and teachers) used to think our computing courses were not as good as the ones taught in the American universities. I want to see if we were right.

So, expect during the following weeks to start reading about my experiences. And if some one from Barcelona wants to meet to do some exercises, please send me an email.

you sent me six mails in September, six in October and by November 6th I haver already received three. I did not want to check the all opt out box because I’m interested to be informed about you, but I do not accept to be spammed monthly, so I just checked the damn box.

You used to be nicer, but lately Forrester is much nicer: it only sends two emails per month.

So, because all the Prolog papers I was reviewing were referencing Programming in Prolog by W. F. Clocksin and C. S. Mellish I bought an older (and cheap) edition to re-read. I was surprised how good the book is for learning to program in Prolog.

You can use the wonderful Learn Prolog Now! as a free introduction text, but Clocksin and Mellish chapters on grammar rules, debugging and laying out programs makes the book priceless.

And if you want to use prolog for ‘practical matters’ I strongly recommend Jan Wielemaker Ph. D. disertation: Logic programming for knowledge-intensive interactive applications. You’ll find a good overview about using Prolog outside the logic course: Web, multi-threaded, RDFs, literate programming, interfacing with object-oriented systems and interfacing with C for creating data storages.

Finally, If you come from the functional programming world, download Scrap Your Boilerplate—Prologically! a Prolog version of the Scrap Your Boilerplate set of papers. It is a great addition for learning Prolog if your background is functional.

• Condition style guide by Nikodemus Siivola
• Beyond Exception Handling: Conditions and Restarts from the always great Practical Common Lisp