Google Analytics (G-P7WVHD84D1) tracking present; no explicit privacy policy linked on page. Standard institutional tracking with potential third-party data sharing.
Terms of Service
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No terms of service visible on landing page; MIT institutional context implies standard terms.
Accessibility
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Page structure and content semantically organized; multiple language translations provided (16 languages listed); indicates inclusive design intent.
Mission
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Educational mission explicitly stated: 'proficiency with tools' and 'fluid and frictionless' learning experience. Open sharing beyond MIT ('shared this class beyond MIT'). Democratization of CS education signal.
Editorial Code
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No explicit editorial standards or code of conduct visible on page.
Ownership
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MIT institutional ownership; CC BY-NC-SA licensing promotes attribution and non-commercial sharing. Source code publicly available via GitHub link.
Access Model
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Free course, open lecture videos on YouTube, community translations, public discussion channels (Discord, social media). Low-barrier access to educational resources.
Ad/Tracking
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Article 12
Google Analytics present; no explicit consent mechanism visible; tracking scope not transparently disclosed.
Great to see a chapter on version control. It is such a shame that almost no CS program teaches proper version control. VCSs and the commit history can be such a tremendously valuable tool when used correctly.
git bisect/blame/revert/rebase/… become so much less useful when VC is treated as a chore and afterthought, and basically amounts to: “Feature is done, my work is complete, just do `git commit -am "changes"` and be done with it.”. And don’t get me started on commit messages.
It is shameful that for a large part of the industry, this is the norm. It is shameful that for a lot of professional, who call themselves software architects or reliability engineers and such fancy titles, still have essentially no idea what they are doing with git, and their response when git add/commit/push/pull don’t work is to shrug, and just delete and re-clone the repo.
Version control should be treated with care and attention to detail. It pays for itself 100 times over.
If your commit history is maintained and tells a story, it is a joy to review your PR. If you just `git commit -am "try fix"` 26 times over, and all that is left in the end is a ball of mud, it is horrible.
> In particular, we’re curious to hear the community’s take on our inclusion of AI-related topics
I think this is fine and if anything you should give it more space. It doesn't replace foundational understanding, but the course is explicitly about "practical" aspects, we can assume said foundational understanding is developed in other courses.
Something like "build your own agent" would be a great intuition pump. The model is doing the heavy lifting and a basic harness is a couple hundred lines of simple code. It could fit in a single lecture and it would be very high signal in my opinion.
Not an entire semester, but I'm really glad my uni had a semester long core CS course on exactly this. Still one of the most useful courses I've ever taken, I refer my notes from that class even now.
In some way this could be the most important course.
You don't appreciate it when you're studying, because obviously it sounds a bit soft. But when you're learning how something works, often the thing that stops you isn't the fundamentals, which you know what are, it's the little frustrations like not knowing how to commit or pull code, or not knowing how to navigate the terminal.
One of my large enterprise clients currently requires all tech staff to complete 18h (yes, eighteen hours!) of "agile training", in addition to speed-running 14 separate mandatory online courses.
This time would be much better spent watching these 9h of lectures.
I'd include sed and awk, because these tools are ubiquitous and can accomplish in a few readable lines what people write long programs to handle in other languages, seemingly because they are unaware of sed and awk, don't know how to use them, or are required for some reason to do it in the project language.
In fact, generally teaching people to select the right tool for the job is a good skill to prevent them from using golden hammers.
I'm glad to see there is a "Beyond the Code" section that discusses comments. Here's what I typically told my students in Intro to Programming"
Good comments lend insight into the code. Reading the code itself tells you the what. Comments should explain the why. Comments like "i+=1; /* Increment i */" are of little value. However comments such as "We increment i mid loop so that we can peek ahead at the next value for a possible swap" are more useful.
Use a narrative voice when writing comments, like you are explaining the code to your grandparent. This make digestion easier.
Remember, code spends most of its life, and most of its expense, in the maintenance phase. The easier you make your code to understand, the less it will cost and the longer it will live.
Just wondering - do you include information on interviewing, salary negotiation, communication with management, leading teams, and maybe topics on career progression?
These would have been very useful to me back when I was in the university.
maybe would be interesting to include a lecture on how to interact with the open source community and successfully contribute to an open source project while respecting maintainer time and energy (and other unwritten rules of (n)etiquette).
edit: already in the "beyond the code" section... cool!
If you want to master the shell (it will save years of your life), follow these guides. I highly recommend reading the entire BASH manual, it will answer every question you'll ever have, or at least give you a hint about it, as well as expose you to all the hidden knowledge (some call it "gotchas") you'll wish you knew later.
To find every Unix-y program and get a 1-line description of it (and referenced programs/functions), run:
for i in $(ls /bin/* /usr/bin/* /sbin/* /usr/sbin/* | sed -E 's?.*/??g' | sort -u) ; do
echo "command: $i"
whatis "$(basename "$i")" | cat
echo ""
done | tee command-descriptions.log
View 'command-descriptions.log' with less command-descriptions.log, use arrow-keys and page up/down to navigate, and type 'q' to exit. To find out more about a program like df(1), run man 1 df.
That's actually brilliant! Most of my classes only taught what tools were needed to accomplish coursework, not generally useful tools. Even our OS class focused on the workings of the kernel, not the Unix philosophy and how it influenced what tools were included, and how to use them. Then again, 20 years ago the year of the linux desktop was much farther away than it is today...
When I was a Physics Ph.D. student in NYU in the late nineties, I took a course called UNIX tools in the CS department. It was a hands on course where the instructor did live REPL in the terminal and we watched him showing us all the tricks. I got hooked with UNIX since then. Got myself a dialup terminal in my tiny apartment in east village and dial in to the workstation on campus. The latency is so bad that I can’t only see the feedback after a few keystrokes. That was when I trained my vi muscle memory. (EMacs was out of the question.)
Later I got my own IBM 386 and installed Linux on it and started to program in Perl …
I am a big fan of Jon’s YouTube videos on Rust and I started to use Rust in non conventional ways.
I am going to follow this lecture series and “port” them to rustdoc and see how it goes.
Another rabbit hole to fall down, it is going to be fun.
Purdue CompE has long had a 1 credit hour course that is just this. Lots of bash and git and then a little Python and Tkinter at the end. Other courses them assumed we had this knowledge - the 300-level ASIC class had us submit assignments by pushing to a remote, for instance. Definitely one of the most useful credit hours I had.
Medium A: Education as human right F: Democratization of CS knowledge P: Open-access distribution model
Editorial
+0.25
Structural
+0.30
SETL
-0.12
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Content frames education and tool proficiency as essential to human development. Preamble spirit of dignity and equality reflected in open-access mission. Structural access model (free, multilingual, YouTube-distributed) operationalizes dignity principle.
+0.28
Article 1Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood
Medium A: Equal treatment in educational access F: Universalism of tool proficiency needs
Editorial
+0.20
Structural
+0.25
SETL
-0.11
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Implicit equal treatment: same course offered to MIT students and beyond. No discrimination signals in admission or access (free, open). Multilingual translations extend equal dignity principle.
+0.18
Article 2Non-Discrimination
Medium P: Non-discriminatory access model
Editorial
ND
Structural
+0.15
SETL
ND
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
No discrimination evident in content or structure. Open to all backgrounds; no barriers based on protected characteristics. Multilingual support indicates inclusivity intent.
ND
Article 3Life, Liberty, Security
Right to life, liberty, personal security not directly addressed in course landing page context.
ND
Article 4No Slavery
Slavery and servitude not relevant to educational technology course context.
ND
Article 5No Torture
Torture and cruel treatment not relevant to course landing page.
ND
Article 6Legal Personhood
Right to recognition as person not directly engaged on course page.
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Article 7Equality Before Law
Low P: Equal protection in educational access
Editorial
ND
Structural
+0.10
SETL
ND
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Course structure provides equal treatment under same terms. No evidence of discrimination in enrollment or material access.
ND
Article 8Right to Remedy
Remedy for human rights violations not applicable to course landing page.
ND
Article 9No Arbitrary Detention
Arbitrary arrest and detention not relevant.
ND
Article 10Fair Hearing
Fair public hearing in judicial context not applicable.
ND
Article 11Presumption of Innocence
Criminal law and presumption of innocence not relevant to educational course.
-0.31
Article 12Privacy
High F: Privacy intrusion through tracking P: Google Analytics collection without explicit consent
Editorial
-0.20
Structural
-0.25
SETL
+0.11
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Google Analytics tag (G-P7WVHD84D1) embedded on page. No visible privacy notice, cookie consent, or opt-out mechanism. Data collection operates without transparent user control. Arbitrary interference with privacy presumed.
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Article 13Freedom of Movement
High A: Freedom of movement through global access F: Open international distribution P: Multiple language translations, YouTube distribution
Editorial
+0.35
Structural
+0.40
SETL
-0.14
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Course explicitly shared 'beyond MIT.' YouTube videos globally accessible. 16 language translations facilitate cross-border access. Community translations and links on Hacker News, Reddit, social platforms indicate intentional freedom of movement of information.
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Article 14Asylum
Medium A: Refuge in education and knowledge F: Universal access to learning as asylum benefit
Editorial
+0.30
Structural
+0.35
SETL
-0.13
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Open access model provides refuge through educational opportunity. No barriers to asylum-seekers or persons escaping persecution. Free, multilingual resources available to anyone seeking knowledge.
ND
Article 15Nationality
Nationality rights not directly relevant to course landing page.
ND
Article 16Marriage & Family
Marriage and family rights not applicable to educational course.
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Article 17Property
Medium P: Open-source code sharing
Editorial
ND
Structural
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SETL
ND
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Source code publicly available (GitHub link); CC BY-NC-SA licensing supports property rights protection and attribution. Minimal signals on full property right protections.
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Article 18Freedom of Thought
Medium A: Freedom of thought through education F: Intellectual liberation via tool proficiency
Editorial
+0.25
Structural
+0.20
SETL
+0.11
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Course content emphasizes mastery and autonomy: 'bend your tools to your will,' 'solve problems that would previously seem impossibly complex.' Educational framing supports freedom of thought and conscience development.
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Article 19Freedom of Expression
High A: Freedom of expression through technical tools F: Democratization of communication technology P: Open-source licensing, public video distribution, community discussion channels
Editorial
+0.40
Structural
+0.45
SETL
-0.15
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Course teaches command-line and text editors essential to digital expression. Open licensing (CC BY-NC-SA) supports freedom to share and modify. Public discussion on Discord, Reddit, Hacker News enables expression. YouTube distribution maximizes reach.
+0.28
Article 20Assembly & Association
Medium A: Freedom of association through community P: Discord community channels, discussion forums
Editorial
+0.20
Structural
+0.25
SETL
-0.11
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Course facilitates association: OSSU Discord community (#missing-semester-forum, #missing-semester), YouTube comments, social media discussion links (Reddit, Hacker News, Mastodon). Organizational support for peaceful assembly around shared learning.
ND
Article 21Political Participation
Participation in government not directly relevant to course landing page.
+0.40
Article 22Social Security
Medium A: Social security through education and skill development F: Tool proficiency as essential to economic participation P: Free access removes financial barriers
Editorial
+0.30
Structural
+0.35
SETL
-0.13
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Course explicitly addresses career preparation: 'students spend hundreds of hours... over their career.' Content positions tool proficiency as social safety net. Free model removes economic barriers to skill acquisition.
+0.34
Article 23Work & Equal Pay
Medium A: Work preparation through education F: Tool proficiency as work enablement P: Career-focused curriculum design
Editorial
+0.25
Structural
+0.30
SETL
-0.12
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Course teaches 'proficiency with tools' essential to modern work. Content addresses AI-enabled workflows, version control, debugging—all professional skills. Free education supports equal opportunity to work.
+0.21
Article 24Rest & Leisure
Low A: Rest and leisure through efficient tool use F: Work-life balance via mastery
Editorial
+0.20
Structural
+0.15
SETL
+0.10
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Indirect signal: course aims to reduce time 'figuring out how to bend your tools,' theoretically enabling more leisure. Limited direct engagement with rest rights.
+0.47
Article 25Standard of Living
High A: Education as standard of living F: Skill development as poverty prevention P: Free, accessible, multilingual course design
Editorial
+0.35
Structural
+0.40
SETL
-0.14
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Course directly supports 'adequate standard of living' through education. Free access removes economic barriers. Multiple language translations (16 languages) support accessibility for disadvantaged populations. Explicit open-sharing model.
+0.58
Article 26Education
High A: Right to education explicitly supported F: Education as human right and development tool P: Free course, global distribution, multiple formats, community translations
Editorial
+0.45
Structural
+0.50
SETL
-0.16
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Strong positive: course is educational program freely distributed. 'Motivation behind class' link suggests pedagogical deliberation. YouTube videos, lecture notes, translations, Discord community support full spectrum of Article 26 implementation (free, accessible, quality, vocational). Fully on-domain evidence.
+0.41
Article 27Cultural Participation
Medium A: Participation in cultural and scientific life F: CS culture and innovation as human heritage P: Open-source, public code, academic sharing model
Editorial
+0.30
Structural
+0.35
SETL
-0.13
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Course content represents scientific and cultural participation in CS. Open-source code sharing (GitHub), CC BY-NC-SA licensing, community translation contributions enable participation in creative and scientific life. Public acknowledgment of contributors (Elaine Mello, Luis Turino, SIPB) supports Article 27 community values.
+0.10
Article 28Social & International Order
Low P: Institutional framework supporting rights
Editorial
ND
Structural
+0.10
SETL
ND
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Course operates within MIT institutional framework (MIT Open Learning, CSAIL domain) and broader academic communities (OSSU, SIPB). Structural placement within institutions implies legal/governance framework supporting rights, but limited explicit engagement.
-0.16
Article 29Duties to Community
Medium F: Potential algorithmic bias in AI-enhanced tools P: Limited transparency on AI tool limitations
Editorial
-0.15
Structural
-0.10
SETL
-0.09
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Course integrates AI tools ('AI-enabled and AI-enhanced tools and workflows') but framing states only 'with awareness of their shortcomings.' Limited evidence of rights-protective guardrails. No mention of algorithmic transparency, bias mitigation, or human dignity protections in AI integration. Mild negative due to insufficient safeguards articulated.
-0.08
Article 30No Destruction of Rights
Low F: Potential corporate tool dependence P: No explicit prohibition on rights-destructive interpretation
Editorial
-0.10
Structural
-0.05
SETL
-0.07
Combined
ND
Context Modifier
ND
Course teaches proprietary and open tools without explicit safeguards against misuse. No articulated position on preventing use of technical skills to violate others' rights. Implicit assumption of ethical use. Neutral-to-mild negative due to absence of protective framing.