gist.github.com is great for temporary snippets. If you have an account it'll keep track of your snippets, make them searchable, and make them shareable with other folks.

Jeremy Ashkenas

245

At this point, I have more questions than answers about the Columbia program.

As many people here know, we at the Medill School at Northwestern have been playing in this space for three years now, since we won a Knight News Challenge grant to offer scholarships to our master's program to people with computer science backgrounds. So I'm a great believer in the idea of bringing these two disciplines together -- and I believe it's in the interest of journalism and our society to create more people who are bilingual in journalism and computer programming.

That said, our approach at Medill has some real practical advantages compared to Columbia's. First, the "integration" challenge that Greg Linch refers to was resolved easily (though, admittedly, imperfectly) by:

1. delegating the first part of the job to the scholarship winners themselves, who come to us with computer science training (and mindsets) and now have to "walk a mile in the journalist's shoes" for three academic quarters, taking the same courses that our "regular" master's students take; and
2. requiring them to participate in a design/product development oriented class (we call them "innovation projects") in which they collaborate with other students to build something new -- a process that we've found is educational for both the scholarship winners and the more traditional journalism students.

Second, this approach (scholarships for a year of journalism studies) made it financially realistic for a software developer to consider -- or at least, rationalize. Thus far we have not found a lot of software developers interested in spending their own money to get a master's degree in journalism. I'd like to think that will change over time, especially as we demonstrate through this scholarship program that people with this combination of skills can find interesting, meaningful work that pays sufficiently for them to make a good living. But for now, my biggest questions about the Columbia program are: Who wants to pay for a 2.5-year degree at Columbia's prices (comparable to Northwestern's)? Are there scholarships to defray the cost? And even beyond the cost, who would want to take 2 1/2 years out of the workforce to get this degree?

I'm also curious about some of the practical realities of teaching the computer science courses to these students. For the most part, master's level classes in computer science at a school like Northwestern (or Columbia) assume that students already have the foundation knowledge in computer science. This is a very different assumption than a master's program in journalism, which would typically be open to students who had no previous experience or training in journalism. What computer science classes will these Columbia students take? Master's level classes, in which case they will need to come in with a solid foundation in computer science already? Or undergraduate classes, in which case they'll be sitting side by side with 19-year-olds with very different life experiences and priorities?

I will say this: If the program as Columbia has outlined it actually is workable and finds a market of potential students who will pay for the degree (or someone who will subsidize the cost), I think it could easily be replicated here and at a variety of other schools that have good master's programs in journalism and good master's programs in computer science. I don't mean to dismiss the "integration" questions that Greg raises here, but I think those are relatively easy to address if there is a body of students who wants these experiences and if there are faculty in both schools interested in working together.

Rich Gordon

359

I love http://snipt.net/ particularly when I need to share snippets.

Dave Stanton

80

As someone who's done this on his own, here's my perspective on the programmers-as-journalists (or journalists-as-programmers) trend:

1) Journalism taught me how to ask questions. Computer Science taught me the importance of asking the right question.

2) Journalism taught me how to communicate. Computer Science taught me how to think.

3) Journalism taught me how to identify problems. Computer Science taught me how to solve problems.

It will be interesting to see what the curriculum is. I looked at the J-school dual-degree website and the Journalism/Computer Science entry is the only one without a "Learn More" link.

Before I entered grad school I completed about 30 credits of undergraduate CS courses. Then I took two graduate-level classes (at Columbia ironically). Then a full graduate program. Without the undergraduate courses I would have been lost.

Students entering the program will want to have taken the requisite Statistics, Calculus, and Discrete Math courses. Introductory CS classes take a couple of semesters themselves.

I think it's much easier to train programmers to be journalists than the other way around. I wouldn't change what I did but, it was hard. Enjoyable, but hard.

markdonoghue

110

+1 to well defined intention, planning, strong facilitation, diverse presenters.

I'm a big fan of Speed Geeking -- harder on the speakers, but everyone gets to ask questions.

I think a clearly articulated vision means that you actually say, "when people leave I want {something}." Skills is still pretty vague. What skills? Who will get something out of this and who won't? (My hunch? As soon as you start saying "something for everyone" it is time to rethink.)

I'm picturing some foundation workshops (and some leadership development in the process: is there someone who should do a hands on version control workshop who doesn't usually lead sessions?), some hands on workshops, where small groups are tackling existing challenges or trying to build something new. Something like this?

And ... spend as little time as possible talking about not sucking. Or about how other conferences suck, or how original this conference is. Nothing makes me want to refine my spitwad skills faster than a welcome talk about how original and different this is all going to be. Just do it.

Amanda Hickman

150

I wrote a bit about this on my blog. Here's a nugget:

Those getting dual degrees shouldn't be the only journalists hanging out with computer scientists. The problem isn't just a lack of reporters who can code, but a shortage of people in the newsroom who know what's possible.

I think Rich has the best insight on meeting that challenge. As he notes, the education goes both ways (and it needs to).

Chris Amico

785

This is a common use case for Git.

Create a branch (copy of your project) for feature A and work on it. Like it? Then merge it into the master branch.

Think of another idea while working on branch A? Make another branch, B, and work on it.

Branching in Git is cheap. In fact, projects in Git are cheap. All changes are local because it's a distributed RCS.

If you decide you don't like your changes you just delete the branches.

I keep all code under source control, regardless of size.

The main Git site has a lot of pointers to documentation (http://git-scm.com/).

I have also used a wiki to store common shell script idioms or commands I want to remember for later (like gnarly one-line perl scripts).

markdonoghue

110

Rich's comment about the practical realities for students entering this program really stuck with me, so I poked around the engineering school's graduate admissions site last night.

Considering his point and other indications, it seems that there will be a certain expectation of CS background (not just coding skills). As Bill Grueskin said in the CJR piece:

In order to be part of this program, they’re going to have to meet the admissions standards of both schools.

From the engineering school's admissions page:

Ordinarily, the applicant will have majored in the field in which graduate study is intended, but in certain programs preparation in a related field of engineering or science is acceptable. The applicant will be admitted only if the undergraduate record shows promise of productive and effective graduate work.

So, based on my understanding, it does seem more similar to what Medill is doing than what I initially thought -- looking for people who already have a strong technical/CS background but -- in a slight twist -- adding another layer of CS. Thus, the target student would: a) improve their CS skills, b) learn journalism and c) combine the two.

Greg Linch

554

I was helping someone at Poynter that was playing with it. Some quirks, but the dev at Google was being very helpful. I'm happy to give a follow-up with URL if there is interest.

Dave Stanton

80

From the limited details I've reading about (thanks for that link, btw), here's what I think:

At a fundamental level, it's great that this is being offered. I'm very interested to learn more details.

My original concern came from not knowing whether they would do a good job of balancing the integration and separation of the CS and journalism programs. Related to that, one point of discouragement thus far comes from this excerpt:

In addition to taking classes already offered at the journalism and engineering schools, students will attend a seminar and workshop designed specifically for the dual-degree program. The seminar will teach students about the impact of digital techniques on journalism; the emerging role of citizens in the news process; the influence of social media; and the changing business models that will support newsgathering. In the workshop, students will use a hands-on approach to delve deeply into information design, focusing on how to build a site, section or application from concept to development, ensuring the editorial goals are kept uppermost in mind.

On its face this is good. The deeper question I have is: will this one workshop and one seminar be the only truly integrated aspects? If so, depending on what other opportunities there are, I think that's unfortunate.

I want them to succeed with this and hope they really push the integration further. For example, at my alma mater (I graduated from the University of Miami in May 2009), there were three different classes within the journalism school this past year that included coding -- they weren't just coding classes:

• Web production: including HTML/CSS (I took this fall of my senior year)
• Programming for interactivity: including AS3, XML, JavaScript (wish I'd taken this)
• Database reporting: including PHP/MySQL (first offered this spring, wish they had it when I was there)

Separation is easy. Those two programs already exist, like doing a dual-degree. Finding the best way to integrate is the real challenge -- and opportunity.

Greg Linch

554

I don't see how this is even possible to do well, though I hope I'm wrong. A 1-year journalism program can't get you depth knowledge unless you have prerequisite skills like proper composition, grammar, etc. Same goes with compsci. You can't come from nothing and go to genetic algorithms in a year. If the focus is to create news programmers, many computer science topics seems pretty esoteric.

Dave Stanton

80

I use Evernote, mostly for smaller CSS/PHP/Javascript snippets with notes on implementation. Two or three lines of code isn't enough to use Git (IMHO), but useful during development.

Megan Taylor

263

Looks like they have more info online and a brochure (heads-up, second link downloads a PDF).

Greg Linch

554