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Poll: Have you read SICP?

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Re: Poll: Have you read SICP?

#31

Post by nandemo »

mturmon wrote: post #23
nandemo wrote: post #18

"Kinda started reading it but didn't get what the hype is all about". I put it on my to-read list after reading Peter Norvig's review. I read maybe 2% of it and skimmed a lot more. While I'm sure I could learn quite a bit if I seriously studied the whole thing, I'm not sure it would be a good use of my time: most of the contents I already studied in college, though in a quite different approach. There are topics that…

I think you're underestimating the depth of the book. I read SICP and took a distance-learning version of 6.001 as a first-year grad student (undergrad BS in CS) and found it to be very challenging if your goal is mastery of the material. Another grad student, who was on a team that placed second in the national Putnam exam (i.e., a national-level math geek), also found it quite challenging. Two of my professors, bot…

Oh, I don't mean to say the book isn't deep; my CS undergrad courses were quite deep! In any case, yes, it's quite possible that I'm underestimating the value of the book for me.

Re: Poll: Have you read SICP?

#32

Post by ricardobeat »

niels_olson wrote: post #28

Personally, I'm a physician with an undergrad in physics, played with logo and basic as a kid. I picked up SICP and got to chapter 2 or 3 on my own time last summer but set it down to go learn Python as it was pretty obvious Abelson and Sussman expect you to either be a bachelor's degree candidate with a lot of time to work on this, or you have a substantial background understanding to bring to bear. I tried Ruby but…

Abelson and Sussman expect you to either be a bachelor's degree candidate with a lot of time to work on this

I think that's to be expected for a university course textbook.

Re: Poll: Have you read SICP?

#34

Post by lambda_cube »

niels_olson wrote: post #28

Personally, I'm a physician with an undergrad in physics, played with logo and basic as a kid. I picked up SICP and got to chapter 2 or 3 on my own time last summer but set it down to go learn Python as it was pretty obvious Abelson and Sussman expect you to either be a bachelor's degree candidate with a lot of time to work on this, or you have a substantial background understanding to bring to bear. I tried Ruby but…

> Brian Harvey's Scheme lectures at Berkeley [...] unfortunately they're gone now

I clicked around a little bit at Berkeley's site and found this: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/playlist#c,s,All,3E89002AA9B9879...

It's looks like it should be the lectures you watched.

Re: Poll: Have you read SICP?

#35

Post by nandemo »

niels_olson wrote: post #28

Personally, I'm a physician with an undergrad in physics, played with logo and basic as a kid. I picked up SICP and got to chapter 2 or 3 on my own time last summer but set it down to go learn Python as it was pretty obvious Abelson and Sussman expect you to either be a bachelor's degree candidate with a lot of time to work on this, or you have a substantial background understanding to bring to bear. I tried Ruby but…

Real World Haskell is definitely not for beginners. Try Learn You a Haskell for Great Good first. Still not for total beginners but since you already know Python you're good.

Re: Poll: Have you read SICP?

#36

Post by wildmXranat »

I've read about a couple of chapters based on a recommendation that these select couple sections would broaden my view of designing parsers and understanding s-expressions. It did. On the other hand, I skimmed the rest of the book and didn't find anything in particular that I needed out of the text. Thus my choice of 'No and I don't want to' seems like a fair one considering I read way less than 25% of it. Maybe a chapter count poll would be better. Let's call it a 5% for me.

I'm guessing that developers don't actually ready cover to cover and cherry pick sections until books reveal more pertinent info later?

Re: Poll: Have you read SICP?

#37

Post by vecter »

niels_olson wrote: post #17
mian2zi3 wrote: post #4

I took 6.001.

talked with a couple of guys from MIT who took 6.001, and asked them if they'd read SICP. They looked at each other and laughed, and said something along the lines of "Haha, ostensibly. I mean, we turned in our homework." Does that represent your experience as well? If that's a legitimate indicator of wider behavior on campus, then I can see why the professors might question the utility of that book in that setting.

I think I read about 10 pages of it one random day for kicks. I don't even remember them assigning any readings from the book (they might've been on the syllabus, but you could just watch the lectures and do the homework and you'd be fine).

Re: Poll: Have you read SICP?

#38

Post by ecyrb »

arohner wrote: post #22
nandemo wrote: post #18

"Kinda started reading it but didn't get what the hype is all about". I put it on my to-read list after reading Peter Norvig's review. I read maybe 2% of it and skimmed a lot more. While I'm sure I could learn quite a bit if I seriously studied the whole thing, I'm not sure it would be a good use of my time: most of the contents I already studied in college, though in a quite different approach. There are topics that…

You'd be surprised. I worked through SICP a few years after graduating, and after the dragon book, and it still managed to warp my brain in new and exciting ways.

Congrats on making it through both. I haven't gotten to the dragon yet... For those interested, you can get a red dragon for significantly less than the newer editions (check amazon).

Re: Poll: Have you read SICP?

#39

Post by tomkarlo »

niels_olson wrote: post #17
mian2zi3 wrote: post #4

I took 6.001.

talked with a couple of guys from MIT who took 6.001, and asked them if they'd read SICP. They looked at each other and laughed, and said something along the lines of "Haha, ostensibly. I mean, we turned in our homework." Does that represent your experience as well? If that's a legitimate indicator of wider behavior on campus, then I can see why the professors might question the utility of that book in that setting.

I took 6.001, and that's about how I remember it from back then. It's a great book but if you were going to lectures or willing to wrestle a bit with the problem sets, you didn't really have to touch the text. Sussman (as I recall) was a great prof, but one of the risks of having the book for the course written by the prof is that they may not be as objective about how well it's actually being used by students.
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