The CS Primer Show

Charlie and Oz reconnect after a year to tackle the question of our times: now that coding agents actually work, does learning computer science still matter — and is the agent an asset to your growth or a liability? They get into RLVR and why agents crossed the threshold, Amdahl's law as a metaphor for automated productivity, why Oz still wants everyone to write a little assembly, and the creeping fear that agents sap "the will to learn" the same way social media saps attention. 
Then the constructive turn: using agents to build your own challenges within your zone of proximal development, why you should read the back of the textbook chapter first, and Oz's homework for Charlie — figure out what you earnestly want to learn, not what you feel you should.
Shownotes:
Steve Krouse of Val Town's post on why coding is still worth learning 
Amdahl's law
Vygotsky's zone of proximal development
Bloom's 2 sigma problem
Oz's blog
Charlie's blog

Brian "Beej Jorgensen" Hall joins Oz and Charlie to dive into the joy and art of learning computer science. It's all here - achieving flow, "How to Solve It" by Polya, self-publishing guides/books on the web, Beej's take on AI and coding, and, of course, the origin of the "Beej Jorgensen" moniker. 
Shownotes:
Beej's website: https://beej.us/
Beej's guide to learning computer science: https://beej.us/guide/bglcs/
Hacker News post on Charlie's short story about a giant diamond asteroid

Oz and Charlie vibe-chat their way through respective Mathacademy experiences + reviews, leading to a discussion of "binge learning" vs more-structured, consistent learning / time-tracking. Also, Oz shares that he's currently reading a math textbook with this incredible sentence in its introduction: "I consider the mathematical treatment of these problems to be among the chief glories of Western civilization, and I hope you agree."
Shownotes:
mathacademy.com
csprimer.com

There's something about MathAcademy that just works for learning math (for both kids and adults - ask Reddit!), and we're chatting with Justin Skycak - Chief Quant & Director of Analytics at MathAcademy - to try to figure it out.
Shownotes:
justinmath.com -- Justin's personal website
mathacademy.com
3blue1brown
Cell biology by the numbers
ExecuteProgram
Star Trek 2009
The Math Academy Way -- Math Academy's working draft book, authored by Justin, which answers the following questions: What techniques exist to maximize student learning and talent development, particularly in the context of math? Why are these techniques so impactful, and if they are indeed so impactful, then why are they so often absent from traditional classrooms? How does Math Academy leverage these techniques?
Math Academy Origin Story, 2014-20 -- from Sandy & Jason's perspective, with a focus on how the original in-school program and early software came to be
Math Academy Origin Story, 2019-23 -- from Justin's perspective, with a focus on teaching in that school program and getting the algorithms in place to turn it into a fully automated system
News Articles about Math Academy's original in-school program
Oz on X
Charlie on X
Oz's website
Charlie's website

Ammar Mian is a software engineer and the co-founder of startup health tech company Malla - and another former student of Oz's and Bradfield School of Computer Science! Many software engineers daydream about starting their own company one day, so we've got Ammar on the show this week to give us the goods. Is it still fun? Can you still get into flow? Are you still coding? Does Oz want to die on Mars? All this and more!
Shownotes:
Malla
The Wiggles
The Six Levels of Interaction with a System
Zone of proximal development
Red-bellied black snake
Reentry [book] - more recent history of SpaceX
Red Mars [book] - Kim Stanley Robinson