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Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy

blog.understudyapp.com

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Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy

#31

Post by monkmartinez »

kenferry wrote: post #25
monkmartinez wrote: post #23

The 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. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrdjKvka558

The video is great! One, Is it possible for a user to "save" the session? After all, it may be some time before they get back together. Two, the quality of written aspect, which is central to the "communication" idea is very poor in comparison to what I can achieve on my Galaxy Note 3 with wacom digitizer. I am a lefty with very small handwriting and its still very legible on the GN3... I can't wait to get a bigger tablet with the digitizer baked in.

I think the idea could be useful for much more than SICP, however the ability to save and actually read what you have written would be killer features.

Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy

#32

Post by monkmartinez »

kenferry wrote: post #29
monkmartinez wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Agreed on the count of potential customers with iPads and productivity within the platform you know. I, for one, wish you all the best and I think its a great idea to be sure. I said this elsewhere, I think this could be super useful for a variety of disciplines, but the underlying technology has to be right. Heres to hoping Apple releases a tablet like the Surface Pro!

Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy

#33

Post by bridger »

kenferry wrote: post #29
monkmartinez wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am the other guy working on Understudy. The iPad has been the best platform for Understudy so far, but I still have my fingers crossed that Apple builds a better touch screen into their next iPad. Who should I pray to for that wish?

Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy

#34

Post by kenferry »

monkmartinez wrote: post #31
kenferry wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrdjKvka558

The video is great! One, Is it possible for a user to "save" the session? After all, it may be some time before they get back together. Two, the quality of written aspect, which is central to the "communication" idea is very poor in comparison to what I can achieve on my Galaxy Note 3 with wacom digitizer. I am a lefty with very small handwriting and its still very legible on the GN3... I can't wait to get a bigger t…

> One, Is it possible for a user to "save" the session?

Yup! Old sessions are basically saved as documents.

> Two, the quality of written aspect, which is central to the "communication" idea is very poor in comparison to what I can achieve on my Galaxy Note 3 with wacom digitizer.

You didn't quite state the question there. :-) If things work out, we'll definitely want to do Android too.

> I think the idea could be useful for much more than SICP, however the ability to save and actually read what you have written would be killer features.

Hope so! We're starting with SICP and Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain[1], but it's really easy for us to add other courses. We really have something like Coursera in mind.

[1] Note: For the drawing book, you're not doing the drawing exercises _in_ the app, you're doing them on paper and then talking them over. https://www.dropbox.com/s/bkjrbclpda8fg5y/Drawing%20Final.pn...

Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy

#35

Post by monkmartinez »

bridger wrote: post #33
kenferry wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am the other guy working on Understudy. The iPad has been the best platform for Understudy so far, but I still have my fingers crossed that Apple builds a better touch screen into their next iPad. Who should I pray to for that wish?

They don't need to build a better touch screen... they just need to add wacom or ntrig digitizer layer with a stylus. Think: Macbook Air with a flip or detachable screen and wacom baked in. This would probably vaporize the iPad as the duality of fully tablet and fully laptop negates the need for both. I like my MBP, but I am seriously considering a Surface Pro so I can get the tablet form factor and a full PC in one. The added bonus is handwritten notes and practicing digital art which used to require a Cintiq or another peripheral device.

Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy

#36

Post by pohl »

davexunit wrote: post #13

To 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.

HN is refreshingly free of terms like M$. Why do we give iThing a free pass?

Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy

#37

Post by brudgers »

pohl wrote: post #36
davexunit wrote: post #13

To 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.

HN is refreshingly free of terms like M$. Why do we give iThing a free pass?

Is it really derogatory?

It seems to that the term covers the hardware associated with iOS and doesn't imply anything one way or another about the company which manufactures it.

It is not as if there is just one "iPhone" and one "iPod" and one "iPad". There are diverse models of each and little point in being pedantic over all the retinas and 2' and 3's and 4's and GS's and plain old S's and mini's and nano's when the important point is that one cluster of them is required to use the product.

Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy

#38

Post by estebanrules »

davexunit wrote: post #13

To 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.

Question - would you recommend working through SICP in Racket? What about MIT Scheme in Emacs?

Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy

#39

Post by oskarth »

kenferry wrote: post #19
oskarth wrote: post #11

This 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…

What about a web app? Whiteboard and video chat works great there, and it's a huge market :)

ADDITION: After all, this is what Khan of Khan Academy does (he uses a wacom though, but then it's a end user decision).

Re: Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy

#40

Post by darkheartfelt »

dmunoz wrote: post #30
andymatuschak wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 c…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgk-lA12FBk
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