Skip to main content

C'est la Z

CSTA NY Conference 2026

Devorah and I are up in New Paltz this weekend. Specifically at the University of New Paltz attending the first CSTA-NY conference. Devorah to run her Blanket Statement knitting project and me to actually attend the conference sessions. Great job by the organizing team. Fresh off of combining all the New York CSTA chapters into one giant Voltron chapter the conference team which spanned the state put on a terrific show.

The New Entry Level

I was getting lunch with a friend - a former student, the other day. Great little tapas place in SOHO. He's a sharp guy. In the tech industry. Back when Google and company were all starting with those "technical interviews," now known as leetcode problems and every other Tom, Dick, and Harry company was playing copycat, he took a different approach. His theory was that his company couldn't compete with, say Google, in terms of cachet, salary, or benefits for an entry level hire so if you were good enough to pass the Google screen and his screen, you'd almost certainly pick Google.

Curriculum Vs Teacher

My friend Neil posted this article earlier today. Got me thinking. Enough so to post again after a couple of months. The article is about Harvard's popular CS50 course. David J. Malan took over and redesigned the course in 2007 and it's been his ever since. This year, Malan is on sabbatical and the course is being taught by Henry H. Leitner who was one of the instructors prior to Malan's reworking of the course.