Armando Fox - inspired by Jennifer Widom’s blog. (And no, the book isn’t free.)

Can We try to maintain the tones down in our posts, and choose more carefully the words we use? Don't forget that translating them to other languages/cultures some words we commonly use without thinking can be very (VERY) "offensive"

I think this comment from Jennifer Widom addresses a number of questions regarding the impact of the online courses on Stanford.

Meanwhile back on the campus front, the Stanford students worked through exactly the same materials as the public students (except for the multiple-choice exams), but they did get something more for their money: hand-graded written problems with more depth than the automated exercises, a significant programming project, traditional written exams, and classroom activities ranging from interactive problem-solving to presentations by data architects at Facebook and Twitter. There's no question that the Stanford students were satisfied: I've taught the course enough times to know that the uptick in my teaching ratings was statistically significant.

I haven't done enough of SaaS yet to have a strong opinion of the course yet, but I will say I greatly appreciate the way Armando Fox has been communicating his experiences with the online course. That combined with things like his efforts to get access to commercial tools (like AWS) and his appearance (and the specifics of his answer) in the thread http://www.aiqus.com/questions/37291/legacy-code-assignment-not-for-us make me believe that even if there are bumps in SaaS they will get it right in the end.

And another Jennifer Widom comment which addresses some popular discussion topics ;-)

Were there any negatives to the experience? Naturally there were a few complainers. For example, in my screenside chats I often referred to the "eager beavers" who were working well ahead of the schedule, and the "procrastinators" who were barely meeting deadlines. Most students enjoyed self-identifying into the categories (some eager-beavers even planned to make T-shirts), but a few procrastinators objected to the term, pointing out that they were squeezing the course between a full-time job or two and significant family obligations. A number of students were disappointed by the low-tech, non-Stanford-endorsed "statement of accomplishment" they received at the end; despite ample warnings from the start, apparently some students were still expecting official certification. I can't help but wonder if some of those students were the same ones who cheated; I did appear to have quite a number of secondary accounts created expressly for achieving a perfect score. I made it clear from the start that I was assuming students were in it to learn, and cheating was not something I planned to prevent or even think about. Of course in the long run of online education, the interrelated topics of certification and cheating will need to be addressed.

I don't like the way this is going compared to other classes. But I will try to give the course a fair review without the book, which may be hard given that the book is considered somewhat essential to following the class as intended (except for those who already have some knowledge of Rails or web development)