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It is exciting! But what I wonder about is what a tablet gets you that you don't get with downloading PLT Scheme and visiting http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-

It is exciting! But what I wonder about is what a tablet gets you that you don't get with downloading PLT Scheme and visiting http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-11.html#%_sec_1.2.5 http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-11.html... Or in the case of NKS, tracking down Mathematica and downloading the code from the book and playing with that on a PC. I don't have an ipad, so I can only guess. Wolfram mentions getting excited about zooming in on the diagrams, and about using the app to refer to parts of the book for himself or to show others. In fact, it seems like the tablet would be great for two people exploring a book or data together.

Tichy 16y ago
Mainly convenience, I suppose. Also the immediate feedback on solutions could be good. How many times do you really do the exercises in books, no matter how much the authors stress that it is important to do the exercises? I tend to skip and save them "for later".
jerf 16y ago
Of all the disciplines that will be revolutionized by computers, I do not think programming will be one of them, because it has already been revolutionized by programming. You already have an unparalleled ability to self-teach programming because programming has already closed the feedback loop as tightly as it can possibly be, with REPLs and so on and so forth. Don't forget that whatever glorious visual interactive treats you envision will have to be, you know, implemented, and decent odds it's already either implemented or not really worth implementing for programming. Sure, it's nice to see a tree balancing or a linked list getting traversed but the virtues of pretty animations start fading as you get a hang of the material. The value of digital education won't and doesn't come from putting a thin, shiny veneer of digital on top of analog textbooks, it will come from enabling entirely new learning modes based around instantaneous and copious feedback that humans can't give, because there aren't enough of them or because they simply can't feed back fast enough. Try to model more disciplines to look like how a modern self-taught hacker learns programming, don't pine as a programmer for flashy textbook-like "digital textbooks" for programming.

Tichy 16y ago

Mainly convenience, I suppose. Also the immediate feedback on solutions could be good. How many times do you really do the exercises in books, no matter how much the authors stress that it is important to do the exercises? I tend to skip and save them "for later".

jerf 16y ago

Of all the disciplines that will be revolutionized by computers, I do not think programming will be one of them, because it has already been revolutionized by programming. You already have an unparalleled ability to self-teach programming because programming has already closed the feedback loop as tightly as it can possibly be, with REPLs and so on and so forth. Don't forget that whatever glorious visual interactive treats you envision will have to be, you know, implemented, and decent odds it's already either implemented or not really worth implementing for programming. Sure, it's nice to see a tree balancing or a linked list getting traversed but the virtues of pretty animations start fading as you get a hang of the material. The value of digital education won't and doesn't come from putting a thin, shiny veneer of digital on top of analog textbooks, it will come from enabling entirely new learning modes based around instantaneous and copious feedback that humans can't give, because there aren't enough of them or because they simply can't feed back fast enough. Try to model more disciplines to look like how a modern self-taught hacker learns programming, don't pine as a programmer for flashy textbook-like "digital textbooks" for programming.