How to Design Programs (2014)

Post by vram22 » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 6:28 AM UTC

axarydax wrote: post #59

tartoran wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see you as fortunate. I battled for years with frustration and loss of passion for coding until I ran into LISP/Scheme/Racket. I like how you put it that it "locked into my brain like it had always been there", I felt the same when I finally got to it. I also discovered this accidentally but much later in my career and only after I started lurking on HN few years ago. I am learning and toying frequently and am very…

Do you remember which book that was? Sounds interesting.

Post by webmobdev » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 6:28 AM UTC

wjossey wrote: post #36

spekcular wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the appeal of this, or SICP, or Scheme in general. I learned much more about computer science reading algorithms and data structures textbooks, especially Knuth. There's a reason MIT uses Python for its intro courses now, after all.

While I have friends (and many colleagues) who graduated from MIT CS and are very competent engineers, I don't think MIT is the shining beacon of the best SE/CS graduates. Their program is certainly very good, but if someone asked me (for CS/SE specifically) about going to MIT or NU, I'd point them to NU. For almost everything else, it would, of course, be MIT.

Post by vram22 » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 6:48 AM UTC

ska wrote: post #6

spekcular wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the appeal of this, or SICP, or Scheme in general. I learned much more about computer science reading algorithms and data structures textbooks, especially Knuth. There's a reason MIT uses Python for its intro courses now, after all.

MIX/MMIX are close to how CPUs work physically. scheme is close to how computation works theoretically. The pedagogical approach that appeals to individuals tends to align with how they are most comfortable thinking about it.

Post by avinassh » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 7:20 AM UTC

gwern wrote: post #26

procload wrote: post #8

Why is this posted again today?

Hanson & Sussman have a new SICP-related book coming out which tackles similar topics: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/software-design-flexibility This post may ultimately be downstream of people thinking about software engineering/CS textbooks and comparing.

Post by theprotocol » Fri, Mar 19, 2021, 7:35 AM UTC

qilo wrote: post #54

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #41

I am self taught, I worked as a lawyer for six years and four of those were spent prepping for a career change - self-teaching comp sci and software dev in the evenings, then working as a volunteer a few years in. (I come from an engineering family and should have just done it from the start, but oh well.) I'm not sure if it's still on the platform, but about a year into my self studying I took a series of courses on…

I think these are the 2 courses OP is talking about: https://www.edx.org/course/how-to-code-simple-data https://www.edx.org/course/how-to-code-complex-data