That is indeed how University learning used to work, for about 1000 years
It's *supposed* to work. In reality you get lectures from individuals that became professors because they are great at politics/research but not at teaching (very different skill). If you even get them and not their 25 year old assistants. And this is apparently super common even in ivy league universities as Youtube lessons have shown me over and over.
I'll add another recommendation for Scheme. The concepts in SICP map very well into Scheme, whereas I can only imagine them being awkward and non-idiomatic in JS. There's lots of passing around first class functions and use of recursion.
One of the two professors (Dr. Sussman) that give the lectures in this series is a co-creator of Scheme.
It's *supposed* to work. In reality you get lectures from individuals that became professors because they are great at politics/research but not at teaching (very different skill). If you even get them and not their 25 year old assistants. And this is apparently super common even in ivy league universities as Youtube lessons have shown me over and over.
Sussman and Abelson are great at teaching.
I'm sure they are, just against the generalization that in class is always strictly necessary as not everyone is Sussman.
That is indeed how University learning used to work, for about 1000 years
It's *supposed* to work. In reality you get lectures from individuals that became professors because they are great at politics/research but not at teaching (very different skill). If you even get them and not their 25 year old assistants. And this is apparently super common even in ivy league universities as Youtube lessons have shown me over and over.
This is why it's so awesome watching David Malan teach Harvard CS50 (free YouTube videos). His presence, knowledge and overall enthusiasm for the topic are outstanding. If more of my college courses had that level, I'd have been far more engaged. When I look back, I realize that I paid a TON of money to have some professors basically "phone it in", yet expect me to basically teach myself their subject of expertise. "Build a compiler". Yes, I can (and did) learn that from a book. I imagine if I had someone truly engaging the room during those sessions, I'd have come away with FAR more appreciation. That could have even led to a different career path.
The JS version of the book (I still bought it when it came out) is just weird. It has you writing JS in a non-idiomatic way that you'd never see (nor should you be the person introducing) in the industry. SICP teaches a very LISP-y way of thinking through problems. It's not that you CAN'T apply these tactics in other languages... they're just far more "at home" in Scheme/DrRacket/heck... even Clojure.
That is indeed how University learning used to work, for about 1000 years
It's *supposed* to work. In reality you get lectures from individuals that became professors because they are great at politics/research but not at teaching (very different skill). If you even get them and not their 25 year old assistants. And this is apparently super common even in ivy league universities as Youtube lessons have shown me over and over.
> And this is apparently super common even in ivy league universities as Youtube lessons have shown me over and over.
I think you have the “even” backwards. Elite research first universities have this problem more than teaching-first, low research output programs.