You have a point, but you are also missing the point. Quite a few people who could benefit from a formal Master's program in CS which is also from a competitive University, may not have the time due to career and family to attend classes full time. But this way they can still get their education
But that isn't what a masters degree is about. If you have a career and family to take care of and don't have time to go to classes, you probably don't have time to commit to a masters degree. And again there is no evidence that an online class from Georgia Tech would be any better than an online classes from anywhere else. Georgia Tech is reputable because of the faculty and research. How does that correlate to online classes?
I fit into that category, and I'm taking 1-2 significant MOOCs (compilers, ML, data science, etc.) at a time right now. I can just make it work, but I wouldn't if I had to show up for class. The fixed schedule format of Coursera adds a bit of pressure, but probably also a bit of motivation.
I agree that online classes from GT aren't guaranteed to be better than online classes from other places. Perhaps one day we'll see an a la carte degree offered by Udacity, so you can pick the courses from the universities or instructors you prefer.
That said, branding and standardization are important. Even if the classes are no better, the perceived value of the degree might be higher than one from Podunk State Online.
That I guess is the 7000$ question. Is the perceived value of an online masters class worth it?
Consider this question. How many employers do you know say, "Oh we hire Ga Tech grads all the time! They are great to work with" I hear that quite a lot around where I live. I think it is due to the culture that Georgia Tech has as well as the in person interaction.
I attended GT a long time ago (early 90's), so I might be out of date, but I wouldn't go far as to call it "culture". I kid, I kid! :-)
It's a notoriously demanding program. I hope they can adapt their "Take a look at the people to your left and right. One of you will not make it to graduation." scare speech/boast to the online format.
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign had an online Master's in CS as far back as 2001, I believe
you had to drive down to campus for tests, though
Now you can go to local places that proctor the test. A few co-workers are doing this now from Minneapolis, going to a community college to take the tests.
Also, it costs about $7k a year assuming you are taking one class a semester for 4.5 years.
Well, it's slower because of a join that exists in SQL (the relationship between your 'field/value' table and the entry. Apart from that, as you said indexes are similar.
The fun thing about NoSQL skeptics is how they think of only the current scenarios they work with, and they won't believe you until they get burned by it. So be it.
Why do you assume that those intelligent people would not engage in some other little value add activity that can make them a lot of money. How much value add do most web social startups provide? The main feature of capitalist economy is that it allows people to work on whatever they want and not on something that some higher authority deems to be "useful"
The main feature of capitalist economy is that it allows people to work on whatever they want
Completely off-topic to the original discussion, but assuming that you intended to imply the quantifier that I think you implicitly intended to imply - i.e., "all people", or even "most people" - you must be living in a completely different world and/or a very cushy bubble. [1]
I expect many people on this site are lucky enough that they can work on whatever they want - either because their interests happen to align with what's currently in demand by the market (as in my case) or because they were lucky enough to be born to rich parents or win the startup lottery.
But take a step back and look outside of that world. Consider, for example, the many people working as cashiers or cleaners. Do you really think that all or even most of them work those jobs because that's what they genuinely want to do, given a choice? It seems much more likely that the main reason why most of them work in those jobs is that they have to make ends meet somehow, and those are the kinds of jobs available to them.
As for the more on-topic part...
Why do you assume that those intelligent people would not engage in some other little value add activity that can make them a lot of money.
I don't. There may be other talent-wasting sectors in the economy (and I guess you always get some geniuses spending their time on whatever the equivalent of card counting of the day is). I have simply pointed out that HFT is one of them (and I do believe that finance in general is the worst offender at this time).
[1] If you intended to imply the quantifier "some people", I apologize for my misinterpretation - though in that case, I would wonder what the point of the statement was. Certainly it doesn't help paint capitalism in a positive light, because every economic system allows some people to work on whatever they want, while the rest tend to have the same superficial choice of job that they do in capitalism. (E.g., you were not simply assigned a job in communism either.)
There is no money in doing really useful things. As long as that's true, lots of smart people will instead find debatably somewhat useful things to do that pay more money.
