It surprises me that people didn't know about these lectures already (of course I realize there's always a first time). They are considered classic and anyone interested in lisp (and programming in general) should watch them.
MIT Lisp lecture from '86. wow.
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Re: MIT Lisp lecture from '86. wow.
#12Imagine being able to re-watch your lectures online when studying for an exam...that would be great. It is fantastic that such lectures are being put online for the use of anyone.
Imagine being unprivileged enough to be born in a third-world country and not even have a chance to pay your application fee for higher education. If you're bright enough and have Internet access you can still learn from the best and maybe prepare yourself and earn a scholarship in the future.
Re: MIT Lisp lecture from '86. wow.
#13Re: MIT Lisp lecture from '86. wow.
#14Imagine being able to re-watch your lectures online when studying for an exam...that would be great. It is fantastic that such lectures are being put online for the use of anyone.
Well, it's very common at my university (Faculty of Information Technology, Brno university of technology: http://www.fit.vutbr.cz ). We're in the 21st century after all. Lectures are streamed in real-time and also recorded and published later.
Us old folk didn't have the luxury :)
We had barely adequate course notes, sometimes, and thats the way we liked it!
The technology of today is inspiring in the way it can distribute highly valuable information and education to the masses.
Re: MIT Lisp lecture from '86. wow.
#15The book that goes with this course, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, is excellent. It's available online:
Re: MIT Lisp lecture from '86. wow.
#16Whatever happened to the Java years of 6.001? Anyone here take them? I still look back fondly on how '001 blew my mind lecture after lecture.
I took 6.001 in the spring of 1997 and we did the simple "Decaf Java" interpreter (in Scheme). Decaf Java is an s-exp representation of a Java program's parse tree. It is foggy and distant now but I believe we did do a problem set in actual Java and then later in the semester after doing the Scheme in Scheme metacircular evaluator we did the Decaf Java interpreter. I don't have any other 6.001 experience to compare it to but I loved the version I took.
Re: MIT Lisp lecture from '86. wow.
#17Gerry Sussman... Good piece of trivia: In addition to creating the class, he taught the last (ever) offering of 6.001 last term at MIT. Another piece of trivia: Hal Abelson, the co-creator, was one of the big guys being 6.001's replacement (now in Python).
With all of the excitement I see online about SICP and Lisp/Scheme, do you (or anyone else) know why they are transitioning away from the book and Scheme?
Re: MIT Lisp lecture from '86. wow.
#18Gerry Sussman... Good piece of trivia: In addition to creating the class, he taught the last (ever) offering of 6.001 last term at MIT. Another piece of trivia: Hal Abelson, the co-creator, was one of the big guys being 6.001's replacement (now in Python).
With all of the excitement I see online about SICP and Lisp/Scheme, do you (or anyone else) know why they are transitioning away from the book and Scheme?
You may have missed the other excitement online about schools changing their computer science programs to make them more attractive to students. MIT's not really ratcheting down the difficulty, but starting off everyone in Scheme was really off-putting to a number of students.
The new intro classes are in Python, which you could argue has the immediate benefit of being used in the world outside of MIT. They're also now more focused on learning while working towards project-style goals (like building a robot) instead of towards academic goals (like getting Scheme to do OOP).
Personally, I loved 6.001, but I'm the first to admit it was not for everyone, even people who could become great coders.
Re: MIT Lisp lecture from '86. wow.
#19I was surprised to see the equivalent of a powerpoint in '86. It's weird to see the same ideas that we have now, but implemented in an older technology. Kinda like when you watch the mother of all demos.
I can see why old-timers think nothing's changed in the past couple decades sometimes.
Re: MIT Lisp lecture from '86. wow.
#20All the Intro to CS classes start the same: the teacher writes COMPUTER SCIENCE in the board and then says 'this is not a science and it is not about computers' and crosses them out.