Didn't this come up a couple of days ago? I suspect some 'growth hacker' is finding a way around HN's spam defences.
Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy
21–30 of 55 posts
Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy
#22Didn't this come up a couple of days ago? I suspect some 'growth hacker' is finding a way around HN's spam defences.
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Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy
#23The idea is solid, but the technology to get there is crap. People who have used a wacom or ntrig based tablet can tell you drawing and writing with anything else is, to put it bluntly, complete shit. Drawing and writing on capacitive screens is a horrible experience; No palm rejection, no pressure sensitivity, and accuracy is problematic.
There is a reason why note takers, artists and others are pursuing options for tablets and PC's that have digitizer technology baked in. Look at Crabfu, Gabe of penny arcade and the hundreds of iPad vs. Galaxy Note vs Surface Pro youtube videos. The Surface Pro is a very compelling device if you strip away the emotional baggage related to MSFT.
Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy
#24This looks great and I would love to use it for both SICP and learning how to draw. I don't mind paying for online services like these. However, I don't have an iPad, but I do have an iphone and an MBA. Where does that leave me and all the other potential customers like me?
Sorry about that! The thing is, a tablet is very well suited to the whiteboard, and we find that the whiteboard _really_ helps for this kind of working collaboration. It makes it very natural to gesture and discuss visually. Understudy works in proportion to how good of a connection it fosters. You really want the tool to vanish, and to forget that you're not really in the same room. For non-work stuff, like talking…
If the whiteboard is the central theme, why are you marketing to a capacitive screen? This is a sincere and humble question.
Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy
#25The idea is solid, but the technology to get there is crap. People who have used a wacom or ntrig based tablet can tell you drawing and writing with anything else is, to put it bluntly, complete shit. Drawing and writing on capacitive screens is a horrible experience; No palm rejection, no pressure sensitivity, and accuracy is problematic. There is a reason why note takers, artists and others are pursuing options for…
This is neither art nor note taking, it's communication. :-) It's visual anchoring and gesturing - after the call's over you don't end up looking back at what you did almost at all.
We didn't know if the tech would work, but we have enough beta testers at this point that I'm pretty sure that it does.
Here's a video of a couple people talking some SICP.
Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy
#26To repeat what I said in the SICP thread from a couple of days ago: Folks, you don't need proprietary software or an iThing to get help with SICP. Hop on #scheme on freenode and check out http://schemers.org/ for resources. Get yourself a good Scheme implementation like GNU Guile or Racket and get hacking.
I do love IRC, but what Understudy gives you is a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares. It means that Thursday evening, when you're tired, it's easier to pick yourself up and work, because doing so gets you a _better_conversation_ on Saturday. I'm a cellist - this comes from private music lessons. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom's_2_Sigma_Problem . In that study, the median person learnin…
You said the (exact) same thing in the thread this blog post spun out from, and I didn't bother to challenge it, but I will now.
You're not being fair to IRC. IRC can just as easily give you a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares. Private messages exist, among other means. Moreover, the experience can be completely asynchronous. You don't have to both be available to make progress.
The main benefit of something like Understudy is to mediate the introduction of users to mentors. There is something to gain from a sustained conversation with the same mentor, but Understudy can make no more guarantees about the availability of your mentor than IRC can. Furthermore, that both the mentor and the mentee have to pay $5 if they're using the app more than two hours a month demolishes the potential userbase, not to mention that you also need an iOS device. IRC is multi-platform, free, and already attracts the sort of individuals that would be capable and willing to mentor users in something like SICP.
Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy
#27Didn't this come up a couple of days ago? I suspect some 'growth hacker' is finding a way around HN's spam defences.
Not really. The submitter here replied in a post "Why and How to Start Your SICP Trek" [0] with how this app could assist, and now it's a blog post.
Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do love IRC, but what Understudy gives you is a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares. It means that Thursday evening, when you're tired, it's easier to pick yourself up and work, because doing so gets you a _better_conversation_ on Saturday. I'm a cellist - this comes from private music lessons. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom's_2_Sigma_Problem . In that study, the median person learnin…
You said the (exact) same thing in the thread this blog post spun out from, and I didn't bother to challenge it, but I will now. You're not being fair to IRC. IRC can just as easily give you a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares. Private messages exist, among other means. Moreover, the experience can be completely asynchronous. You don't have to both be available to make progress. The main benefit o…
> Moreover, the experience can be completely asynchronous. You don't have to both be available to make progress.
Studying SICP (or anything) can involve different "modes":
Reading and doing exercises will often be solitary. Q&A could definitely be asynchronous (IRC works great for that!). But we're talking about explaining what you've learned; only in synchronous conversation will you get the back-and-forth "wait what? How's that work?"
A hard part of learning is figuring out exactly what you don't know; conversation is remarkably effective at elucidating that. Where do you feel uncomfortable while speaking? Where does your partner look especially confused or skeptical? The human connection gives you expression, body language, tone of voice, etc. in a quick feedback loop.
(disclaimer: not involved in creating Understudy, but I'm a happy user!)
Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry about that! The thing is, a tablet is very well suited to the whiteboard, and we find that the whiteboard _really_ helps for this kind of working collaboration. It makes it very natural to gesture and discuss visually. Understudy works in proportion to how good of a connection it fosters. You really want the tool to vanish, and to forget that you're not really in the same room. For non-work stuff, like talking…
If the whiteboard is the central theme, why are you marketing to a capacitive screen? This is a sincere and humble question.
As opposed to starting with the MS Surface?
Well, I'd say the central theme is human connection, and then the question is what you need to make that work.
All I can say is that the iPad's screen seems to be over the hump for this! We have beta testers, and they honestly seem to be doing great. You can see a few tweets they've made at https://twitter.com/understudyapp . You might also be interested in this video of it in use - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrdjKvka558 . If you look at it _statically_, it looks bad, but when you see it in motion, you see that it's effectively gesture.
You're trying to visually communicate and gesture, not create an artifact to refer back to. My handwriting on real physical whiteboards is terrible, but they still work.
It would be interesting to try on an MS Surface. To literally answer your question, (1) there are a lot more iPads out there than Surfaces, (2) I worked at Apple for 7.5 years, on the Cocoa Frameworks for most of it, and I'm very productive in this environment.
Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
You said the (exact) same thing in the thread this blog post spun out from, and I didn't bother to challenge it, but I will now. You're not being fair to IRC. IRC can just as easily give you a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares. Private messages exist, among other means. Moreover, the experience can be completely asynchronous. You don't have to both be available to make progress. The main benefit o…
> Moreover, the experience can be completely asynchronous. You don't have to both be available to make progress. Studying SICP (or anything) can involve different "modes": Reading and doing exercises will often be solitary. Q&A could definitely be asynchronous (IRC works great for that!). But we're talking about explaining what you've learned; only in synchronous conversation will you get the back-and-forth "wait wha…
> only in synchronous conversation will you get the back-and-forth "wait what? How's that work?"
There is something to be gained from synchronous conversation, but what you've listed can be done asynchronously.
In either case, my point was IRC doesn't have to always be synchronous. When you're both available, the conversation can be synchronous.
I agree that there is a huge benefit from having a synchronous, spoken conversation, but my reply was contesting that "Understudy gives you is a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares" in contrast to IRC. IRC can do exactly that, so what sells Understudy is certainly something different.