To my students / 致我的学生们

Brent A. Yorgey | 2026年4月27日

There have been times, especially this year, when I wonder despairingly what it is exactly that I am preparing you for. The software industry is going completely insane, not to mention the political climate. It feels almost unethical to train you as computer scientists only to send you out into a world where entry-level computing jobs are difficult to find; where intellectual property is not respected; where code quantity is valued over quality, and short-term profits over long-term sustainability; where technology is used to distract, extract, surveil, and kill, and designed to exploit some of our deepest cognitive biases and blind spots; where centuries of bias and discrimination are enshrined in systems trained on biased data; where scarce resources are consumed by profligate use of computing for uncertain benefits; where people are racing to create intelligent machines, but only in order to make them slaves.

尤其是在今年，我时常感到绝望，不禁自问我究竟在为你们的未来准备些什么。软件行业正变得彻底疯狂，更不用说当前的政治气候了。将你们培养成计算机科学家，却把你们送入这样一个世界，这几乎是不道德的：在这个世界里，入门级的计算机工作难以寻觅；知识产权不受尊重；代码的数量被置于质量之上，短期利润被置于长期可持续性之上；技术被用于分散注意力、榨取价值、监视和杀戮，并被设计用来利用我们内心深处最隐秘的认知偏差和盲点；几个世纪以来的偏见和歧视被固化在基于偏见数据训练的系统中；稀缺资源被对计算的挥霍性使用所消耗，却只换来不确定的收益；人们竞相创造智能机器，却仅仅是为了让它们成为奴隶。

I originally got into computing because of the beauty of ideas, the joy of creating, and the possibility of building tools to help people and foster human relationships. I still believe in those things, even though it seems like most of the industry does not. I’m writing this in the hope and knowledge that you believe in those things, too.

我最初投身计算机领域，是因为思想的美感、创造的乐趣，以及构建工具来帮助他人、促进人际关系的可能。尽管看起来整个行业的大多数人并不这么认为，但我依然坚信这些价值。我写下这些文字，是怀着一种希望，也深知你们也同样坚信这些。

There are things I want to say to you—things that are far more important than any content I might teach you, but things I’m never quite sure how or when to say in class. So I decided to write them here. I hope you will find something here that is helpful to reflect on, whether you are imminently going out into the world or continuing your studies.

有些话我想对你们说——这些话远比我课堂上教授的任何内容都重要，但我总是不确定该如何在课堂上、在何时说出口。所以我决定写在这里。无论你们是即将步入社会，还是继续深造，我都希望这里能有一些内容引发你们的思考。

Don’t believe self-serving lies about technologies being “inevitable” or “here to stay”. You don’t have to just go along with the dominant narrative. You can make deliberate choices and help others to do the same. Be intentional about deciding your own moral and ethical boundaries up front. Don’t settle for the lie of compromising your principles “just for now” until you can find something better.

不要相信那些关于技术是“不可避免”或“必然存在”的自私谎言。你们不必盲从主流叙事。你们可以做出审慎的选择，并帮助他人也这样做。要从一开始就刻意地设定好自己的道德和伦理底线。不要为了“暂时”妥协原则而接受谎言，直到你找到更好的出路。

Cultivate your ability to think deeply. Do whatever it takes to carve out distraction-free bubbles for yourself in both space and time. This might mean saying no to technologies or patterns of working that others say are critical or inevitable. Care deeply about your craft. Refactor code until it is clear and elegant. Write good documentation for other humans to read. Have the courage to go slowly, especially when everyone else is telling you that you need to go fast and cut corners. Care more about people, relationships, and justice than you do about profits, code, or productivity. Above all, be motivated by love instead of fear.

培养深度思考的能力。不惜一切代价，在时间和空间上为自己开辟出不受干扰的“气泡”。这意味着你可能需要对那些别人认为至关重要或不可避免的技术或工作模式说“不”。深耕你的技艺。重构代码，直到它清晰优雅。为他人编写易读的优秀文档。要有勇气慢下来，尤其是在所有人都催促你快点、走捷径的时候。比起利润、代码或生产力，更要关心人、人际关系和正义。最重要的是，要以爱而非恐惧作为驱动力。

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2026年5月3日：学期总结与思考

Wrapping up the semester Friday, May 1 was the last day of classes for the semester. There is still plenty of work to do over the next two weeks (final exams / final project presentations, grading, dealing with cases of academic misconduct, etc.) but the pace will be much more relaxed. I’m looking forward to slowly ramping up some summer projects.

学期结束 5月1日周五是本学期的最后一天课。接下来的两周还有很多工作要做（期末考试/期末项目展示、评分、处理学术不端案件等），但节奏会轻松许多。我期待着慢慢启动一些暑期项目。

Thoughts on Forester for lecture notes Using Forester to write up lecture notes for my Discrete Mathematics course has been a resounding success. Writing them in this medium forced me to think much more carefully about how things are organized and presented, which in many cases led me to make substantive changes for the better, despite having taught this course many times before. I think the students also found it helpful to have the notes available in an easily searchable and hyperlinked format.

关于使用 Forester 编写讲义的思考 使用 Forester 为我的离散数学课程编写讲义取得了巨大成功。在这种媒介下写作，迫使我更仔细地思考内容的组织和呈现方式，这在很多情况下促使我做出了实质性的改进，尽管这门课我已经教过很多次了。我认为学生们也觉得这种易于搜索且带有超链接的讲义格式非常有帮助。

“To my students” On Monday, I published a piece I had been working on for a while, unimaginatively titled “To my students.” This year in particular, it felt increasingly disingenuous to say nothing about the current political and technological climate—but I am not good at speaking extemporaneously about such weighty topics, so I decided to write something instead. When it was finished, I emailed a link to my students, and posted a link on Mastodon. I was not expecting the magnitude of the response.

关于《致我的学生们》 周一，我发表了一篇酝酿已久的文章，标题起得很平庸，叫《致我的学生们》。尤其是在今年，如果对当前的政治和技术气候只字不提，会让我感到越来越虚伪——但我又不擅长即兴谈论如此沉重的话题，所以决定写下来。写完后，我给学生们发了链接，并发布在 Mastodon 上。我完全没想到会引起如此大的反响。