Gist.io: http://gist.io/4076068
Edit: Uh, why downvote? Not complaining, just curious; I have done this before for plaintext articles and will do it again, but only if it's welcome.
Brian Harvey: Why SICP matters
21–30 of 52 posts
Re: Brian Harvey: Why SICP matters
#22I am one of Brian Harvey's student progeny. I still consider the SICP as my favorite computer science book, and in retrospect CS61A one of my favorite and most important courses. There is something amazing about a course that takes one from "square can be defined as (define (square x) (* x x))" to writing an interpreter, and be something a mere mortal can work through in a few months. And that's just chapter one to f…
I love the story where the creators defined a Lisp interpreter in Lisp, and then one said, "you know, we don't have a Lisp compiler, but I could compile this source by hand." It's quite an elegant concept when you accidentally create a fully-functional interpreter overnight.
Re: Brian Harvey: Why SICP matters
#23SICP has wonderful materials to touch on so many important and elegant concepts in CS that it should be taught to any serious CS students. It's not about the language Scheme itself but all the underlying CS ideas. You might be able to learn those concepts here and there from time to time. SICP ties them in one comprehensive course.
My experience with SICP is a case of after the fact. I've learned and wrote LISP codes long before touching SICP. The learning process was reading existing source codes and going through reference materials. It's not until I went through SICP that suddenly all these concepts and ideas became so clear.
Re: Brian Harvey: Why SICP matters
#24I was turned onto the SICP lectures[1] though people talking about them on HN, and I was just floored by them. They still give me goosebumps when I watch them. It's like watching a video of someone completely in their element and at the top of their game, like the lecture equivalent of the 2007 Wimbledon Finals or something.
And of course, the book is awesome too. And it rewards repeat readings.
[1] http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput...
Re: Brian Harvey: Why SICP matters
#25As someone who hasn't been able to get enough motivation to read past the first few pages of SICP, I _really_ wish someone made a TryRuby.org like thing using SICP. Please!
You mean to give you a scheme REPL?
Because I'm skeptical of the use of transforming SICP into a "tutorial" style. It's the kind of book that you need to read and think about.
Having said that, finding a REPL that's compatible with it can take a little bit of time. Personally I quite like GambitC which I seem to recall is fairly compatible.
Re: Brian Harvey: Why SICP matters
#26I just finished watching MIT 6.00SC for the hell of it. It was really sad experience. Of course, prof. Guttag is really a big-shot and seems like no one could say anything, but I cannot even properly describe how much worse it was than CS61A by Brian Harvey. It is not just Python, it is ugly Python, boring Python, without any hint of elegance it could be. No list-set-dict comprehensions, which is what makes Python in…
Where might I find the CS61A videos? A cursory search found the Brian Harvey course page at http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/sp11/ but the lecture webcasts link seems to be broken http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details_new.php?seriesid=...
Try this! Haven't been here in ages, but it looks like it still works: http://wla.berkeley.edu/
Re: Brian Harvey: Why SICP matters
#27We need to start discussing about OO in general. We have a generation (or two,three in internet time) that think that OO is the epitomy of software engineering. We have Haskell, Ocaml, and others that can do better
Re: Brian Harvey: Why SICP matters
#28am i wrong in thinking in the Common Lisp thinking that data and methods don't belong together? In production environments we at least have extensions methods in c#, but man i still love generic functions in CL style. Why am i wrong?
Re: Brian Harvey: Why SICP matters
#29I just finished watching MIT 6.00SC for the hell of it. It was really sad experience. Of course, prof. Guttag is really a big-shot and seems like no one could say anything, but I cannot even properly describe how much worse it was than CS61A by Brian Harvey. It is not just Python, it is ugly Python, boring Python, without any hint of elegance it could be. No list-set-dict comprehensions, which is what makes Python in…
On a tangent, it's not only list-set-dict comps what makes Python interesting. The very simple and powerful approach to metaprogramming is very interesting as well (all the magic __whatever__ methods, for example)
Re: Brian Harvey: Why SICP matters
#30I just finished watching MIT 6.00SC for the hell of it. It was really sad experience. Of course, prof. Guttag is really a big-shot and seems like no one could say anything, but I cannot even properly describe how much worse it was than CS61A by Brian Harvey. It is not just Python, it is ugly Python, boring Python, without any hint of elegance it could be. No list-set-dict comprehensions, which is what makes Python in…
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