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@jfarmer

Midwestern fella teaching folks how to code. Education, code and philosophical pragmatism. Past: @MissionBit @DevBootcamp @Everlane https://t.co/NInB7ebHrd

San Francisco, CA Katılım Mayıs 2007
1.1K Takip Edilen3.5K Takipçiler
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/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀
/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀@jfarmer·
Programming is hard *and* anyone can do it. Telling beginners that it's easy makes them feel stupid when they struggle. Worthwhile things are often hard: writing well, playing an instrument, cooking, etc. "All" they require is the right kind of practice and enough time.
Cat McGee | catmcgee.sol / eth@catmcgee

Whenever I meet someone and tell them I’m a programmer, they always immediately assume I’m super smart Guys, can we collectively try to make people understand coding is not difficult? It is literally googling and fixing bugs we caused in the first place Anyone can code

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Vincent Woo
Vincent Woo@fulligin·
another brutal deployment of Z3 to avoid solving today's problem
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Michael Pershan
Michael Pershan@mpershan·
Wow what a great and refreshing read.
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/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀
/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀@jfarmer·
@oznova_ “The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund.” — William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890)
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Oz
Oz@oznova_·
Formula for homeschooling (or afterschooling) that's so effective that people think you're lying: - Teach them to read ASAP then fill the house with books - 1 hr/day of Beast Academy - 1 hr/day of their special interest (currently biochem for us) The rest takes care of itself
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Simon Willison
Simon Willison@simonw·
This was a tough but necessary decision - I posted my own notes on this here, from the perspective of a current PSF board member simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/27/ps…
Python Software Foundation@ThePSF

TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-fu… 🧵 pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-fu…

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Jeremy Howard
Jeremy Howard@jeremyphoward·
This is empirically incorrect. Hundreds of thousands of fast.ai students have learned the required math for ML as they go. By *far* the biggest problem we've seen is from people who try to learn the math first. They learn the wrong stuff & have not context.
Justin Skycak@justinskycak

One of the most common - yet most preventable - traps that people fall into, that leads them to give up on their ML aspirations:

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/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀
/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀@jfarmer·
DI advocates seem to want a nice skill tree (DAG) which you learn in topological order. But, IMO, if understanding enough X helps you learn Y then understanding enough Y probably helps you learn X. Cycles abound.
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/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀
/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀@jfarmer·
I feel like direct instruction advocates often have a case of "grade school"-itis. My experience teaching adults, for example, is that they have a wide range of prior experiences to draw from. Some use math to learn ML, some use ML to learn math, and some bounce between.
Jeremy Howard@jeremyphoward

This is empirically incorrect. Hundreds of thousands of fast.ai students have learned the required math for ML as they go. By *far* the biggest problem we've seen is from people who try to learn the math first. They learn the wrong stuff & have not context.

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Thomas H. Ptacek
Thomas H. Ptacek@tqbf·
Begging everyone who talks about health economic policy to go download the most recent CMS National Health Expenditure, Table 19, it's a single-screen Excel spreadsheet with the entire health system on it. A lot of arguments (not this one) don't survive first contact with it.
Jerusalem@JerusalemDemsas

the reason it's so hard for you to find a primary care doctor is that the American Medical Association has been working behind the scenes to inflate specialist pay

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Vincent Woo
Vincent Woo@fulligin·
Never doubt that direct action gets the goods
Vincent Woo tweet mediaVincent Woo tweet media
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/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀
/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀@jfarmer·
@greg_ashman For example, do you think there's EVER an instance where an individual novice would benefit more from open-ended instruction over direct instruction? If so, how to tell? In my cough example, maybe the cough was caused by a rare calcium deficiency.
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/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀
/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀@jfarmer·
@greg_ashman I suppose the difference is: - "Every SoL strategy works for every student", which is a confused objection - "For every student, there exists an SoL strategy which will work", which might be what you're suggesting?
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Greg Ashman
Greg Ashman@greg_ashman·
The ecological fallacy is when predictions are made about individuals based on predictions made about the averages of groups. It’s like saying that, on average, men are taller than women therefore this man must be taller than that woman. I think many critics of the science of learning are operating under the ecological fallacy. The science of learning presents a series of best bets based on what works on average. Advocates don’t claim that each strategy will always work with every individual. And yet, when I read criticism of the science of learning, it often reads as if this is how it is being interpreted by critics. I wonder whether part of this misunderstanding comes from people who are not trained in science.
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/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀@jfarmer·
@greg_ashman Or is SoL more like public health in that way? If I'm going to make a global recommendation then I'd recommend drinking water for a cough because that helps a cough more than milk in 99 out of 100 cases, and never hurts. Even if 1:100 students would be better off drinking milk.
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/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀
/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀@jfarmer·
@greg_ashman For example, the "mean" medical advice if you have a cough might be to drink water and wait a few days. But if it persists then there's a whole suite of differential follow-ups. Yea, it's good to know drinking water is better than drinking milk. Is SoL beyond that stage?
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/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀
/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀@jfarmer·
@maenadea Yeah, there'd be something absurd about memorizing all 4950 problems. Why is 8*12 why is more like 2*5 and not more like 17*32? I learned the 10x10 table in schoo l. Assuming I was able to do both, would my time then be spent learning the full 12x12 table or some basic algebra?
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Veronica
Veronica@maenadea·
@jfarmer No one is suggesting 4950. But the 144 that are recommended make fractions and factoring the next year (4th grade) a lot easier. And it’s common to still be working on it during 4th grade.
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/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀
/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀@jfarmer·
I love automaticity and agree it's powerful. I also have a math degree and still spend 2-3 hours/week working through some math textbook or paper. If you ask me to calculate 8*12 then I'm doing "8*10 + 8*2". Every time. So whatever that prevents me from doing, it's not math!
Kelsey Piper@KelseyTuoc

watching oldest kid do math has made it really really clear to me how important it is to have lots of stuff ingrained automatically. you only have the working memory for so many 'steps'. if you have to use several of them to figure out what 8*12 is, there is so much you cannot do

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/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀
/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀@jfarmer·
I'm sure (virtually) everyone agrees that IF your goal is to learn math THEN the opportunity cost of memorizing + retaining all 4950 two-digit multiplication problems is too high. My math-time would've been better spent figuring out why there are 4950 such problems, for example.
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/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀
/jesse-farmer.php?q=🐀@jfarmer·
I think there are three relevant questions: 1. What is the opportunity cost of isolating that one thing and drilling it? 2. How does that drill train your attention, muscles, and mind? 3. Will your new drill-refined habits help or hinder you in future situations?
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