21–30 of 141 posts
Was glad to see this posted here, especially since in late August, I'll be taking the one-week SICP course that David Beazley in the Python community put together: https://www.dabeaz.com/sicp.html
Given there's so much free material on SICP out there, paying $2500 to learn SICP feels a bit like paying a personal trainer to force yourself to work out (which I've admittedly done before)
I was pretty excited when I found a physical copy at a thrift store for two dollars. Even though I had already read it, I like having it on my shelf to prominently display.
It's not a trivial read, but I feel like it's complicated enough to make you think, but not frustrate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you need to have a solid foundation in lisp to understand it or is it approachable for experienced software developers in other domains?
Not at all. It was written as an introductory text for freshman computer science students with no prior exposure to programming (much less a Lisp or Lisp-like language). Just keep in mind that the students in question were at MIT. :-) The book gets very deep (note some of the things that Paul Graham says in his review, and note who is saying those things). Be prepared to expend a lot of challenging brainwork to get t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given there's so much free material on SICP out there, paying $2500 to learn SICP feels a bit like paying a personal trainer to force yourself to work out (which I've admittedly done before)
It indeed feels exactly like that, yes. And, obviously, you've never taken a Beazley course before. :-)
Could you elaborate on this point? I am not familiar with this individual or their classes. Is there something special?
If you tried reading SICP in the past but it didn't quite click, you might want to try watching the lectures as you read it: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB63C06FAF154F047
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mostly agree but: Lua is a Lisp-lite, Ruby maybe a Lisp-lite, Python? No way, I'd go as far as say that Python is antithetical to the Lisp philosophy and yes, I know Norvig has claimed something similar in the past. It's still inaccurate and wrong. In an interview, Norvig pretty much admitted that popular appeal is more important to him than the inherent superiority [which he of course acknowledges] of the philosophy…
i you squint you'll see CLOS
Earlier quoted context omitted.
i you squint you'll see CLOS
What is CLOS? Is this an acronym? Google is failing me here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Lisp_Object_System
Besides Google, I find Wikipedia is often helpful when finding acronym definitions as well. In this particular case, probably adding "Lisp" to your Google search would have helped, but if you didn't know it was limited to that domain, it's understandable that you didn't include it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It indeed feels exactly like that, yes. And, obviously, you've never taken a Beazley course before. :-)
>"And, obviously, you've never taken a Beazley course before. " Could you elaborate on this point? I am not familiar with this individual or their classes. Is there something special?
One of my favorite presentations of his that gives a flavor of his instruction style is "Python Concurrency from the Ground Up" at PyCon 2015:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCs5OvhV9S4
I saw this one live, but I think the recording is good quality. He live codes a Python 3 highly concurrent, generator-based TCP server that does fibonacci calculations, if I recall correctly.
One of the YouTube comments gets it right, it's "The Jimi Hendrix of Python".
The prior course I took with him was called "Writing a Compiler (in Python)". I think I took it the first time it was offered, in 2012. In that course, we implemented a programming language that was a (very small) subset of GoLang, by building the entire parser/compiler in Python. So, in 5 days, you learned all about compiler theory, and wrote your own compiler (in Python) for this GoLang-style language. The last day, we peeled away the layers of the onion for how PyPy is implemented under the hood, using our newfound compiler toolchain knowledge. It was really fun. He has a very engaging presentation style and a fascination with computing that is infectious. You leave the course energized and happy to be a programmer.