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If not SICP, then what? Maybe HTDP?

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Re: If not SICP, then what? Maybe HTDP?

#41

Post by vanderZwan »

agumonkey wrote: post #35
vanderZwan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wasn't good enough to really derive newtonian method on my own. There is an old SMBC comic highlighting this general issue in STEM where for some mysterious reason, mathematical theories that took at least a few scientific generations to figure out, with lots of bitter fighting among the giants of science about which conclusion we should accept as correct, are now being taught as if they are trivial to reproduce…

I grew up bothered by this on many levels. Not only some of us feel negatively for the struggle. I believe that ~learning the results teaches less than learning how to solve it. I does accelerate learning and allow people not to reinvent all 4 wheels... but reading old papers (there's a video on Newton's very own notebook, it is so damn different from anything I've ever read about physics) tickles another part of you…

Similarly, a lot of James Clerk Maxwell's writing can be found on Archive.org, and it's amazing:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=maxwell%2C+james+clerk&...

Re: If not SICP, then what? Maybe HTDP?

#42

Post by wolfgke »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #5

It's always interesting seeing the textbooks that are renowned by professors/people with prior knowledge, yet disliked by actual students. The Feynman Lectures on Physics is a pretty famous example (iirc, the actual course was received pretty negatively by students). I wonder how many people have actually sat down with a bunch of students and done a real experiment with textbooks. It's quite easy to think that a text…

> Only by getting feedback from real students can you truly figure out whether a textbook is good.

The problem is (also in my experience) that students often cannot grasp the depth of the textbook/topic when they here the lecture. I openly admit that I only could appreciate the depth of the topics taught in some math lectures 5-10 years later (but already at the time that I heard them, I loved hard lectures - in oppposite to many classmaters).

So if you want to get feedback, ask the students not before 5 to 10 years after they heard the lecture - otherwise the answers will in my opinion be meaningless.

Re: If not SICP, then what? Maybe HTDP?

#43

Post by philonoist »

punchclockhero wrote: post #11
wa1987 wrote: post #4

People who worked through HtDP: what are your impressions?

Only worked through a part of it, but left a pretty good impression. Writing style was pleasant to read, sometimes imagined it read in Bob Ross' voice. Only Scratch has a shorter "zero to moving pictures" time. The language manual is so tightly integrated with the book it doesn't leave a single character of code unexplained (I've read beginner's books that never explained "+=" while using it in code samples). My only…

Could you please link me the EDX course site? I am not able to find it. Coursera scrapped it's 2015 version

Re: If not SICP, then what? Maybe HTDP?

#44

Post by CodeArtisan »

craigsmansion wrote: post #16

"that make me jump through intellectual hoops made of mathematics" There is actually surprisingly little mathematics in SICP. What is does have are mechanisms that are then analysed and modelled, after which the mental model is adapted so it can be turned into computational model that is a faithful representation. Some of the presented mechanisms are mathematical in nature, but you don't need a mathematical backgroun…

The first chapter of SICP is entirely relying on mathematical examples because data structures are not introduced before the second chapter. The book expect the reader to have a solid base in calculus.

Re: If not SICP, then what? Maybe HTDP?

#46

Post by pbh101 »

mesaframe wrote: post #27
hopler wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are stronger at thinking -- higher IQ for pattern matching, problem solving, and creativity. Better ability to remember something after just one or few exposures, and recognize it when it is hinted at indirectly. Better ability to visualize without being given illustrations. More able and willing to spend time and paper on working out missing details. Any or all of the above.

Source citing any or all of above properties?

http://www.prepscholar.com/sat/s/colleges/MIT-SAT-scores-GPA

(First google result, I didn’t verify further)

It is admittedly only a proxy, but the entrance SAT math scores for MIT students are 770 for the 25th percentile and 800 at the 75th percentile.

Put another way: the test that is a helpful differentiator of intellectual ability of the general college population is not a good differentiator for the MIT population because a large proportion max out the scale.

Re: If not SICP, then what? Maybe HTDP?

#47

Post by kod »

wa1987 wrote: post #4

People who worked through HtDP: what are your impressions?

It's the best book I've found for actually teaching people how to solve problems using programming, rather than just learning semantics.

I use it for continuing education at a company, the only complaint I've heard from people is that it's very deliberately paced.

I do wish there was an equivalent that used a statically typed language, because the actual approach is very fundamentally based on types. I've spoken with the authors about this, and the reasoning was twofold: 1. people are going to have to deal with unityped languages in industry; 2. existing error messages for static languages were bad. At this point, something like Elm might be a good fit, although you'd lose out on lispy things like quasiquote.

Re: If not SICP, then what? Maybe HTDP?

#48

Post by JustSomeNobody »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #5

It's always interesting seeing the textbooks that are renowned by professors/people with prior knowledge, yet disliked by actual students. The Feynman Lectures on Physics is a pretty famous example (iirc, the actual course was received pretty negatively by students). I wonder how many people have actually sat down with a bunch of students and done a real experiment with textbooks. It's quite easy to think that a text…

My Physics III prof: “I won’t lecture from the book. I wrote the book. I know what’s in the book. It is your job to read the book.”

Worst book ever. Ugh.

Re: If not SICP, then what? Maybe HTDP?

#49

Post by the_af »

veddox wrote: post #38
davidgrenier wrote: post #30

I think it's worth pointing out why the author's of SICP themselves acknowledge why it was phased out. Praphrasing, it essentially boils down to the kind of applications developpers of today are writing. People are now mostly slinging libraries they have a superficial understanding of together in a black-box style. So for most proprammers there's a lot of prodding and tinkering and this isn't a skill that SICP teache…

If your CS degree aims to churn out programmers ready for industry, then a overview of the currently favoured libraries is indeed what you need to teach. If on the other hand, you want to produce actual computer scientists who know how to think for themselves, the SICP is what you're looking for. (And I would hope that an institution like MIT would choose the latter focus for its program.)

I tend to think the goal of a CS education is to form computer scientists. It's just that a lot of people (and articles) think it's about churning out programmers for the industry.

With such a mismatch of expectations, the resulting frustration on both sides is not surprising...

Re: If not SICP, then what? Maybe HTDP?

#50

Post by fierarul »

winterismute wrote: post #22

When I started my Bachelor in Italy (Bologna) I had actually not enrolled yet to the degree, and I was instead following both Computer Science and Philosphy. My plan was to continue both of them, or to choose one. We had this first year programming course taught by a fairly younger teacher (39), Ms Busi: I was expecting not much from it because I thought it would be an introductory course on programming OOP stuff wit…

This is a beautiful story. I am sorry for your loss.
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