I think this Stanford course is aiming at a different goal than Harvard’s CS50. Harvard’s course seems to be aimed at people who are coders or want to be better at coding, so you learn about different languages, algorithms/data structures, SQL and such.
The Stanford course, especially the second half, appears to be more in the spirit of liberal arts. It covers high-level concepts in CS (server vs client, how does the internet work, what is encryption) that even someone who never writes code professionally will be able to use. They’ll be better able to read newspaper articles on tech topics, or perhaps more to the point, better equipped to be a PM/lawyer/BD in the tech space.
> Harvard’s course seems to be aimed at people who are coders or want to be better at coding, so you learn about different languages, algorithms/data structures, SQL and such.
Hard disagree on this one. I learned how to program from CS50 with no prior experience. That introduction got me interested enough to pursue it as a career. I would highly recommend it for anyone who just wants to see what the whole programming thing is all about.
I did not intend to suggest CS50 required coding experience. My comment was more that the goal of CS50 seems to be about making the student a better coder by the end (including the case where the student has no coding experience). That does not seem to be the goal of Stanford’s CS101.
The Stanford course, especially the second half, appears to be more in the spirit of liberal arts. It covers high-level concepts in CS (server vs client, how does the internet work, what is encryption) that even someone who never writes code professionally will be able to use. They’ll be better able to read newspaper articles on tech topics, or perhaps more to the point, better equipped to be a PM/lawyer/BD in the tech space.