Today: Last lecture, 3x tech and society, your future in CS, conclusions

Thanks To Juliette and the Section Leaders

First: I'd like to thank Juliette and the section leaders, the only way this course can work is with their prodigious and generous efforts.

For Juliette and myself, teaching this class is very satisfying endeavor - it's great to see the light in someone's eyes (even on Zoom!) when the power we know in CS starts working for that student.

Art Show Nominees

Art Show Nominees

Art Show Voting

3x Tech and Society Questions

(1) Open Source Software, and (2) How The Internet Works, (3) Disinformation Challenge

1. Why Is Free / Open Source the Dominant Infrastructure?

How Open Source Works:

Let's look at Python
alt: magazines make money on ads

Open Source License - Contributions

Open Source Economics

2. Why Is Everything on the Internet Free?

1. Magazine, Newspaper, TV Model


alt: magazines make money on ads

2. Google - The Same


alt: google results + ads

Or we can ad in the flow of money .. now it's a working system
alt: google results + ads

Things To Watch Google On - Sketchy

Yahoo Cautionary Tale

3. Depressing - Facebook / Youtube Disinformation

The most depressing feature of the content/advertising cycle above

e.g. Flat Earth Disinformation Story

Disinformation Tragedy

CS106A Big Picture

Women in CS Trend

Slide from Mehran Sahami, Stanford CS-Education


alt: increasing percentage of women in CS

Lots of Need for Programmers

Story: I was on a bicycle, wearing shorts and a "Python" t-shirt stopped for a red light. A passerby in the cross-walk stopped as they were crossing the street, asking if I was looking for work.

Conclusion: programmer shortage

Pre CS106B chat..

Key Ideas We've Seen in Python

Your Second Programming Language

Here is some C++ code 

// comments start with 2 slashes
int i = 0;                    // declare type of var
while (true) {                // curly braces
    i += 1;                   // same as py, semicolons
    if (i == 100) {           // same as py + braces
        break;
    }
    i += "Hello";             // error detected
    // int/string types different,
    // Error is flagged at edit-time:
    // *earlier* than python, an improvement
}

Possible Next Steps

Most Stanford students take 1 or 2 CS classes and keep with their chosen major. It's easy to imagine they use Python here and there as part of their work.

Next "CS106" CS106B

Scientific Python CME 193

CS106E

CS129 Applied Machine Learning

Map of CS Major

Think About Section Leading

Spring Opportunity For CS106A Students - Code in Place

CS Major Tracks / Concentrations

Human Computer Interaction - HCI Design

Symbolic Systems Major

A sibling to the CS major - similar intellectual domains but less focus on coding

An interdisciplinary major that uses the lenses of CS, Philosophy, Psychology and Linguistics to study systems that use symbols to represent information. In Symsys you can concentrate on AI, Neuroscience, Natural Language, Philosophical Foundations or design your own concentration.

Big Data - Machine Learning

Ghost Example

Machine Learning Sketch

Machine Learning - Very Promising

Art Show Winners

Congratulations to our bluescreen winners, in the best spirit of creativity and coding - we will be emailing out out a small prize to our winners as well.

winners link (eventually)

Where is the Magic in CS?


alt: ghost input image with foot in the way

Where is the Insight? The Power?


Where is the power in this story?