31–40 of 207 posts
it is a shame that csci is shifting away from teaching fundamentals to teaching syntax. it would be like teaching art with color-by-numbers.
This is kind of sad, like an english department no longer teaching Shakespeare because it is written in archaic language and can't hold the student's interest. But computer science isn't like english, so I guess it is a bit of false analogy. Fortunately the text and lectures are available for free online, so there is nothing to prevent the curious student from digging in. edit: now that I've more time to reflect, I w…
This is kind of sad, like an english department no longer teaching Shakespeare because it is written in archaic language and can't hold the student's interest. But computer science isn't like english, so I guess it is a bit of false analogy. Fortunately the text and lectures are available for free online, so there is nothing to prevent the curious student from digging in. edit: now that I've more time to reflect, I w…
The obvious solution: rewrite SICP to use Python rather than Scheme. It is CC attribution and non-commercial, so I don't see any legal barrier to outsider revision.
The beauty of Scheme is that it makes the underlying language mechanics transparent. The mental models I acquired from SICP for the process of computation have served me well across a dozen languages since.
But that probably doesn't matter. So it's better, on the whole, to preserve what you can out of the current book by adapting it to Python than losing it completely.
Things will get lost in translation and substantive changes will have to be made. That's why writing textbooks is a creative endeavor rather than just updating the English used in older texts.
So did anyone else look at the challenge problem, see f(n-3), f(n-2), and f(n-1), then immediately think "oh. A three element array would solve that"? Took me less than 60 seconds... I'm a little worried that I'm so good at imperative programming, though, since it might indicate that I'm "crippled" when it comes to functional programming. I bet one of you could code circles around me when it comes to e.g. implementin…
http://www.starling-software.com/blogimg/tsac/1011/fremlin-t...
In my opinion the idea that there is a division between functional and non-functional programming at all comes because of a disagreement or misunderstanding with the principles of SICP: C is a perfectly functional programming language if you say that each statement is a function from machine state to machine state. . .
I love SICP as much as the next person. I've spent vacations devouring it while despairing girlfriends try to get my attention. Seriously, it is awesome . But, being realistic, an incredible amount of value is currently being created by software engineering . Value to society, and (hence) value to those who can practice the craft. I'm not surprised that so many schools are teaching software engineering, instead of co…
Actually, my old school had such a major...
If you can understand the core concepts of programming, the individual languages begin to matter a lot less. Python is great. Java is great. C++ is great. But they are just tools for solving classes of problems; if you don't understand how to, as the author says by way of example, deconstruct problems and understand the advantages and disadvantages of various solutions, then the software you write will never be as efficient or as elegant as it could be.
There is a compelling argument that, in the age of nearly limitless computing resources, it doesn't matter anyway. You will in all likelihood be a glue programmer: you'll rely on APIs and libraries, most of which have been written by someone else, and you will simply string them together by applying the functions that most obviously address whatever problem you're trying to solve. Who cares, really, if you're using Quicksort or heap sort, you're just going to call sort() on your array (or map, or key-value store, or whatever), and define a callback function that will evaluate any two given values in the array to be sorted, and that's it. Who cares if one requires a little more memory than the other, or a little more time to execute?
Just knock it out, and then get back to arguing online about the One True Language, or the One True Framework.
But, I've been programming for about 25 years now, in dozens of languages, and I can't help but feel that this language-specific approach to programming is producing anemic programmers.
Programming can be a craft; in can be done well, and elegantly. I can hack together a decent, reasonably strong wooden workbench for my shop, but it doesn't possess the same craftsmanship as a dedicated wood worker. It does the job, but it is ugly and uninspiring, and nobody admires it.
So, I guess I think that programming is similar, and moving from SICP to teaching Python or Java is just another representative sample of a disappointing sea change away from what I've come to know and love about programming.
So did anyone else look at the challenge problem, see f(n-3), f(n-2), and f(n-1), then immediately think "oh. A three element array would solve that"? Took me less than 60 seconds... I'm a little worried that I'm so good at imperative programming, though, since it might indicate that I'm "crippled" when it comes to functional programming. I bet one of you could code circles around me when it comes to e.g. implementin…
I recommend a project with lots of IO and State. You'll quickly come to understand why the monadic approach to such things is excellent (even if Haskell's implementation is a bit verbose).
I basically agree with the OP that Dive into python is a pale replacement, but at the same time there is something to SICP's critics. Peter Norvig seemed to think most people would get the most out of it after getting some experience, and the HtDP authors definitely have a point about how much heavy math is involved. It's still a wonderful book, and won't be lost, I'm sure. http://www.amazon.com/review/R403HR4VL71K8…
I get why people object to heavy math in programming -- it makes the entire field less accessible -- but programming is heavily based on mathematics, if not entirely a subset of mathematics. Saying, "it requires too much math to learn this" strikes me as a lot like saying "there's too much biology in learning to be a doctor".