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This is a book that embodies its thesis, that learning to design programs is like learning how to write or do mathematics. In the same way that academic treatm

This is a book that embodies its thesis, that learning to design programs is like learning how to write or do mathematics. In the same way that academic treatments of writing or math abstract out the things you might actually do with writing or math, HTDP abstracts out the things you might actually do with a computer program. Instead you work through exercises that illustrate the fundamental concepts. I don't know that a practicing professional will learn all that much from HTDP, but it's an interesting perspective all the same.

samth 6y ago
Are you saying the examples in the book are insufficiently real-world (ie, they should be more like creating websites and less like Tetris [https://htdp.org/2020-8-1/Book/part_two.html#%28part._sec~3atetris%29 https://htdp.org/2020-8-1/Book/part_two.html#%28part._sec~3a...] or XML [https://htdp.org/2020-8-1/Book/part_four.html#%28part._ch~3amoney-sexp%29 https://htdp.org/2020-8-1/Book/part_four.html#%28part._ch~3a...])?
- sevensor 6y ago
  No, I think that would be a lazy and unjustified criticism. My remarks shouldn't be taken as criticism at all. In the same way that a calculus textbook has the student work carefully constructed math problems, HTDP has the student work carefully constructed program design problems, always at exactly the right level to stimulate growth. My point is more that the setting is as different from ordinary software development as a calculus class is from the work of electrical engineering. This isn't a bad thing; just as everything I learned in calculus class helps me in my work as an engineer, everything I would have taken away from HTDP had I been taught with it as an undergraduate, would help me now. Instead, having read through most of HTDP long after my school days, I've concluded that it's a very good, systematic treatment of a subject I learned in bits and pieces along the way.

samth 6y ago

Are you saying the examples in the book are insufficiently real-world (ie, they should be more like creating websites and less like Tetris [https://htdp.org/2020-8-1/Book/part_two.html#%28part._sec~3atetris%29 https://htdp.org/2020-8-1/Book/part_two.html#%28part._sec~3a...] or XML [https://htdp.org/2020-8-1/Book/part_four.html#%28part._ch~3amoney-sexp%29 https://htdp.org/2020-8-1/Book/part_four.html#%28part._ch~3a...])?

sevensor 6y ago
No, I think that would be a lazy and unjustified criticism. My remarks shouldn't be taken as criticism at all. In the same way that a calculus textbook has the student work carefully constructed math problems, HTDP has the student work carefully constructed program design problems, always at exactly the right level to stimulate growth. My point is more that the setting is as different from ordinary software development as a calculus class is from the work of electrical engineering. This isn't a bad thing; just as everything I learned in calculus class helps me in my work as an engineer, everything I would have taken away from HTDP had I been taught with it as an undergraduate, would help me now. Instead, having read through most of HTDP long after my school days, I've concluded that it's a very good, systematic treatment of a subject I learned in bits and pieces along the way.