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How to Design Programs (2014)

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Re: How to Design Programs (2014)

#91

Post by dagw »

dominicjj wrote: post #84
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…

So what you're saying is: “Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot.”

That is exactly how I feel about learning Haskell.

Re: How to Design Programs (2014)

#92

Post by wffurr »

butterisgood wrote: post #79
127 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recursion is all fine and dandy when you have TCO. Most languages don't.

And even in the ones that do, you often want a trace (which you can get fairly often) when debugging.

Is the stack trace for a TCO recursive loop really that different from a function with a loop in it? You still see the caller and the state of the loop like recursion.

Re: How to Design Programs (2014)

#93

Post by tartoran »

vram22 wrote: post #61
axarydax wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you remember which book that was? Sounds interesting.

Yes, I would like to know too.

The book is indeed http://t3x.org/amk/

I ordered a paperback at:

https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/nils-m-holm/logic-programmin... in-scheme/paperback/product-1z82nmng.html?page=1&pageSize=4

It was absolutely worth it.

Re: How to Design Programs (2014)

#94

Post by tartoran »

unrequited wrote: post #57
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…

What would be your advice to someone who's going through that frustration? I would love to get in touch to talk more about this. Thanks.

It really depends on what your current situation is. Sometimes a break or distancing solves the problem. Other times it simply is trying something else, job, language, hobby. Make changes until something clicks. It sounds cliche, each person has a different journey but journeys do have some common patterns. Not sure what your frustrations stem from but I could get in touch and talk more about this.

Re: How to Design Programs (2014)

#97

Post by nils-m-holm »

tartoran wrote: post #89
nils-m-holm wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50 pages? I think it is Logic Programming in Scheme: http://t3x.org/amk/

Yes, this is the book and I guess I am replying to the author:) Thank you Nils M Holm. This book is very much on my taste, it contains exactly what it should and nothing more and nothing less. I guess some would prefer the Reasoned Schemer style but I find the dialogue a bit distracting for the first book. I ordered a paperback from lulu and it was a great decision, I use a marker and write on the margins. It is abso…

Thank you! I am glad you liked the book!

Re: How to Design Programs (2014)

#98

Post by random_coder »

Tarq0n wrote: post #95

These discussions often revolve around introductory or 'first' books. What are some good followup books to HtDP, or books for an intermediate audience?

Usually SICP is recommended as a follow up to HtDP. It's freely available at https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full-text/...

Re: How to Design Programs (2014)

#100

Post by exdsq »

avinassh wrote: post #67
gwern wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just checked, seems this book is already available to purchase. Released on 9th March

In theory - I’m still waiting for my copy and Amazon now says it’s unavailable.
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