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SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

mitpress.mit.edu

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Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#61

Post by bmitc »

schwartzworld wrote: post #11
bmitc wrote: post #10

I saw this the other day on Amazon while picking up the SICP instructor's edition. For the life of me, I can't figure out why they chose JavaScript to do this. And the new authors are professors . Since the original SICP has a permissive license, I've actually thought about doing something similar, but with a more modern functional language.

Yeah, imagine the craziness of making materials like this accessible to users of the most widely used language.

Education and enlightenment are not about appealing to the least common denominator and status quo.

JavaScript lacks several features that make it apt to translate this book.

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#63

Post by bmitc »

millerm wrote: post #32
turminal wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This isn’t about JS. That's precisely why it shouldn't be in JS. Edit: to clarify, javascript is full of random warts that you have to know about in order to use it effectively, that's why I think a language with less such warts would be more suitable for someone that wants to try out and use the ideas book introduces with caring too much about the language.

The most accessible runtime on the planet. To each their own. I loathe JS, but I also believe english is a crap language. English happens to be the only language I can effectively use to describe my ideas to others. :-)

> The most accessible runtime on the planet.

In what sense?

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#64

Post by bmitc »

kazinator wrote: post #59
shaunxcode wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JS has always been a LISP in Algol clothing.

Only, you know, without List Processing. And seventeen things that test false. And all numbers being floating-point (except when optimized implementations fudgily pretend that small values are integers). And a switch statement that you have to put into a function in order to get a return value out of it (everything returns a value in Lisp). Maybe it's more of a Scheme in Algol clothing; not everything returns a value…

And no tail-call recursion.

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#65

Post by paradite »

I took the CS1101S course taught by Martin Henz (who did the adaptation), where this JavaScript adaptation of SICP was the textbook. I enjoyed writing JavaScript and functional programming.

Here is an old screenshot of the interpreter that I was able to build:

https://paradite.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/interpreter....

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#66

Post by [deleted] »

d3nj4l wrote: post #56
gumby wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know which one I'd rather debug, but which one can a new student get started with faster? They are unlikely to already have a scheme interpreter on their computer.

It won't take longer than 15 minutes to get racket installed, and that's being extremely conservative. If you can't spend 15 minutes getting setup done, why would you finish a dense book on the theory of computation?

[deleted]

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#67

Post by namelosw »

SICP in Python - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22994976

You can see there's more negativity in this thread compared to the Python one. HN crowd is pretty hostile toward JavaScript.

Yet JavaScript is obviously a better choice than Python in terms of SICP Scheme substitute. For example:

- JavaScript is arguably a Scheme descendant, or at least have closer blood ties with Scheme than Python.

- The Lambda in Python is just awkward, and SICP is a book about lambdas.

- The Chapter 2: JavaScript use more anonymous object which makes it a better choice, although there are dictionaries in Python it's more favored to use Classes.

- Chapter 3, the Object-oriented Programming part: Use lexical closure to simulate object is just day to day JavaScript. So does dispatch and pattern matching messages.

- Chapter 3, the stream part: In JavaScript world the "functional" streams approach is also very popular.

- As for symbolic programming and such, they're both not particularly good. But that's a problem for all mainstream languages. At least JavaScript has programmable string template.

As you can see many SICP stuff are just day-to-day JavaScript, but not so much in idiomatic Python. Let alone JavaScript is more approachable in almost every platform, and much easier to make interactive tutorials.

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#68

Post by tzs »

jpgvm wrote: post #48
tartoran wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think hell is coded in Java

Hell, Heaven and Earth are written in Java. That is why most people are slow after waking up and why you need to sleep for garbage collection to run.

For arguments that God wrote it all in Lisp see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-OjTPj7K54

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#69

Post by lkschubert8 »

bmitc wrote: post #63
millerm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most accessible runtime on the planet. To each their own. I loathe JS, but I also believe english is a crap language. English happens to be the only language I can effectively use to describe my ideas to others. :-)

> The most accessible runtime on the planet. In what sense?

If you have a browser on a computer you have a js repl.

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#70

Post by crate_barre »

tartoran wrote: post #21
jacquesm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's proof that you are already in hell.

I think hell is coded in Java

Like many answers in life, hell is not coded in Java or JavaScript, hell is coded by other people coding in Java or JavaScript.

Some things in life just turn into hell when you ask for everyone’s interpretation (politics, government, programming). It’s not fried chicken which most people cant fuck up even if they tried. Stick the damn chicken in the fryer, and whether you over-do it or under-do it, it’ll be fine with some ketchup.

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