3 ms·
Sure, but we're not talking about elementary school here. I think Python is a fine language for teaching first graders about programming. But this is MIT. If
by lisper 4y ago
Sure, but we're not talking about elementary school here. I think Python is a fine language for teaching first graders about programming. But this is MIT. If MIT students aren't expected to understand how things work under the hood, what hope is there for the rest of humanity?
What I lament here is not the fate of 6001 specifically. It probably was outdated and in need of a refresh of some sort. What I lament here is the rationale that Sussman gives and apparently buys into, that the new approach is acceptable, and it's acceptable because treating things as magic black boxes is an inherent feature of modern engineering. No one understands, no one can even be expected to understand, and that's Just The Way It Is, and it's OK.
Well, no, it's not OK. People can and must be expected to understand because the magic black boxes aren't actually magic. They were created by mere mortals not that long ago, some of whom went to MIT and read SICP. If SICP is dated (and it is) the thing to do is to update and improve it, not to discard it.
- rtpg 4y agoIsn’t this literally the first class you take? Like there are. 3.5 years left to learn all the other shit? This is a class for people with little to no programming experience. And it will include many people who will not be programmers (shocking I know). “Give people tools to do shit” does not preclude “learning all the details”. And it’s not the last class people take!
- p_l 4y agoIt also expected that you have considerable earlier knowledge, just not on programming itself (For example, at least some exposure to calculus is expected, as that's what some early examples use). The early lessons of SICP are more like teaching what's 2+2 in my opinion (substition model of function application, for example). In terms of practicality of the content, honestly I'd say SICP was at least as bad as most intro lectures I've seen, and honestly should stay but be combined with something like companion labs with "battery included" builds to play with things.
- randcraw 4y agoIn the OP video, Sussman mentions that SICP was one (the first) of four core courses in EECS that introduced essential concepts in programming, circuits, signals and systems, and computer architecture. I think all four completed by the end of year two and were prerequisite for all junior/senior EECS courses thereafter. It's hard to imagine the EECS program does not still require this material to earn a BS in CS or EE, but requiring four prerequisite courses probably interfered with non-EECS students who wanted to take junior/senior level EECS courses but did not want to have to run the "gauntlet of four" before doing so.
- inimino 4y agoThe problem is that MIT used to be the high road for engineering and now it is a prestige degree and grants access to various roles etc. They gave in to the bureaucrats because it was inevitable that things would go that way anyway. At least they put the bullet in SICP and had a hand in the new curriculum. Now there is a generation of software engineers worried about losing their jobs to ChatGPT because they resigned to the fact that ChatGPT can probably glue things together better than they can long before they do the necessary work to understand ChatGPT from first principles. But this is branded as elitism, highly anti-bureaucratic.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- CamperBob2 4y agoUnfortunately the view that we don't understand our own tools, while premature, will come true soon enough. Ask somebody at DeepMind exactly how AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol. At the end of the conversation, you will get a blank look. Don't even bother asking what inspired SD or DALL-E to generate a particular image.