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Ok this is a great book, but also boring as hell esp for self study. The MIT course also has switched to using python. For algorithms this one http://en.wikiped

by dilanj 18y ago

Ok this is a great book, but also boring as hell esp for self study. The MIT course also has switched to using python. For algorithms this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Algorithms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Algorithms is a pretty awesome read.

kaens 18y ago
I did not find SICP boring for self-study at all. Quite the opposite, really.
- eru 18y ago
  I read it during summer break back in school. "People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like."
mechanical_fish 18y ago
The MIT course also has switched to using Python. I've always assumed that was because of the Feynman effect [1]: The freshmen (of all engineering majors) who were the ostensible audience of SICP were getting more and more frustrated by Scheme, a language that feels impractical to the average know-it-all first-year mechanical engineer. In my experience, if you name-drop SICP in front of the average MIT student, there's a good chance that they will cringe and mutter some rude word about Scheme. Not everyone is born to love computer science. But if you want to self-study math and CS then you should seek out SICP in Scheme, just as (given the choice and the ability) you should reed Dostoyevsky in Russian instead of in English translation. Use the language the authors really want to use. [1] Which I name, of course, after the Feynman Lectures on Physics, a series of legendary lectures that is beloved by physics grad students but is rumored to have been a failure as an actual first-year physics text. Though accounts differ, the legend is that the lectures were just a bad fit for the average Caltech freshman -- for one thing, Feynman puts relatively little emphasis on solving math problems, which he did as easily as breathing but which the average freshman needs lots of practice in -- and the course was only taught once. Does anybody know of another first-year course that tried to use these as texts? I've never encountered one. But they have certainly been used for self-study by many people, including bright high-school students.
- aston 18y ago
  The audience of SICP was just the people who were planning to major in EECS at MIT, making it only impractical for, at best, the subset of the major that was interested purely in hardware. Having not been privy to the internal discussion that came before the decision to drop SICP at MIT, I can't say I understand why they did it, but my best guess is that it was too hard. It serves as an excellent separate-wheat-from-chaff type of class, but at the cost of decreased enrollment in the major. As far as I'm concerned, though, you can basically ask someone how they liked 6.001, and if they have any positive words, you can pretty much hire them on the spot for any programming job you've got.
  - mechanical_fish 18y ago
    This helps explain it: I've encountered quite a few MIT-trained EE hardware engineers. Perhaps that's where I heard the grumbles about 6.001.
- rglovejoy 18y ago
  All engineering majors at MIT were not required to take SCIP, just the EE/CS majors. Back when I was a student, the rest of us either took 1.00 (C as taught by civil engineers) or 2.10 (Fortran, by mechanical engineers), or we simply learned a language on our own time. That being said, the purpose of 6.001 (SCIP) was not to learn Scheme, but to use Scheme to introduce students to some of the fundamental concepts of computer science. As for Feynman, the reason he only taught the class once (over three semesters, I believe), is that there was only one Feynman, and he had a pretty full plate of other things to work on. The "Feynman Lectures" were never meant to be textbooks. They were what they were: lectures, to be read by students seeking additional insights in physics.
  - mechanical_fish 18y ago
    Thanks for the clarification. This is why I like posting random scuttlebutt on the web; I get authoritative corrections from people who were there! Yeah, the Feynman lecture analogy should not be taken too far. Like SICP, the Lectures were aimed at the very interested majors, possibly at the expense of others -- but perhaps that's as far as the analogy goes. The Lectures were indeed a special event, whereas SICP was designed as a proper textbook: It was used for many years and by many teachers besides its authors.

by dilanj 18y ago

kaens 18y ago

I did not find SICP boring for self-study at all. Quite the opposite, really.

eru 18y ago
I read it during summer break back in school. "People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like."

mechanical_fish 18y ago

The MIT course also has switched to using Python. I've always assumed that was because of the Feynman effect [1]: The freshmen (of all engineering majors) who were the ostensible audience of SICP were getting more and more frustrated by Scheme, a language that feels impractical to the average know-it-all first-year mechanical engineer. In my experience, if you name-drop SICP in front of the average MIT student, there's a good chance that they will cringe and mutter some rude word about Scheme. Not everyone is born to love computer science. But if you want to self-study math and CS then you should seek out SICP in Scheme, just as (given the choice and the ability) you should reed Dostoyevsky in Russian instead of in English translation. Use the language the authors really want to use. [1] Which I name, of course, after the Feynman Lectures on Physics, a series of legendary lectures that is beloved by physics grad students but is rumored to have been a failure as an actual first-year physics text. Though accounts differ, the legend is that the lectures were just a bad fit for the average Caltech freshman -- for one thing, Feynman puts relatively little emphasis on solving math problems, which he did as easily as breathing but which the average freshman needs lots of practice in -- and the course was only taught once. Does anybody know of another first-year course that tried to use these as texts? I've never encountered one. But they have certainly been used for self-study by many people, including bright high-school students.

aston 18y ago
The audience of SICP was just the people who were planning to major in EECS at MIT, making it only impractical for, at best, the subset of the major that was interested purely in hardware. Having not been privy to the internal discussion that came before the decision to drop SICP at MIT, I can't say I understand why they did it, but my best guess is that it was too hard. It serves as an excellent separate-wheat-from-chaff type of class, but at the cost of decreased enrollment in the major. As far as I'm concerned, though, you can basically ask someone how they liked 6.001, and if they have any positive words, you can pretty much hire them on the spot for any programming job you've got.
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  This helps explain it: I've encountered quite a few MIT-trained EE hardware engineers. Perhaps that's where I heard the grumbles about 6.001.
rglovejoy 18y ago
All engineering majors at MIT were not required to take SCIP, just the EE/CS majors. Back when I was a student, the rest of us either took 1.00 (C as taught by civil engineers) or 2.10 (Fortran, by mechanical engineers), or we simply learned a language on our own time. That being said, the purpose of 6.001 (SCIP) was not to learn Scheme, but to use Scheme to introduce students to some of the fundamental concepts of computer science. As for Feynman, the reason he only taught the class once (over three semesters, I believe), is that there was only one Feynman, and he had a pretty full plate of other things to work on. The "Feynman Lectures" were never meant to be textbooks. They were what they were: lectures, to be read by students seeking additional insights in physics.
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  Thanks for the clarification. This is why I like posting random scuttlebutt on the web; I get authoritative corrections from people who were there! Yeah, the Feynman lecture analogy should not be taken too far. Like SICP, the Lectures were aimed at the very interested majors, possibly at the expense of others -- but perhaps that's as far as the analogy goes. The Lectures were indeed a special event, whereas SICP was designed as a proper textbook: It was used for many years and by many teachers besides its authors.