CS student - Excellent learning experience.

[jsel]

Hello everyone,

I am currently in my third year of computer science study at a public university. I found out about this course a few months back on TED. The TED talk was very motivating and inspiring for me. The idea of building a general purpose computer starting only with NAND gates was very appealing to me, and I had never been so excited since I began as a CS student.

This course was exactly what I had needed and been looking for. After taking courses such as computer architecture, programming languages, etc.. , I often felt as though my understanding was decent, but not rock-solid. Even though the platform being built here is very simplistic, it gets the job done and provides a total understand of how to implement the functions of a general purpose machine. This is something I think many of my peers miss out on. The hands-on approach of the course facilitates inventive thinking, not just knowing material.

Right now I am in chapter 5, and I have learned a lot since. To be honest, I believe that this course will be one of the most beneficial compared to my university courses.

[cadet1620]

jsel wrote

This course was exactly what I had needed and been looking for. After taking courses such as computer architecture, programming languages, etc.. , I often felt as though my understanding was decent, but not rock-solid. Even though the platform being built here is very simplistic, it gets the job done and provides a total understand of how to implement the functions of a general purpose machine. This is something I think many of my peers miss out on. The hands-on approach of the course facilitates inventive thinking, not just knowing material.

This is why I'm such an advocate for this course. The distillation of a computer to its essence that Noam and Shimon have managed is brilliant!

--Mark