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For those turned off by its mathiness, one of the coauthors explained, "There’s a tremendous amount [of math] in this 6.001 book. That’s partly because we were
by calibraxis 14y ago
For those turned off by its mathiness, one of the coauthors explained, "There’s a tremendous amount [of math] in this 6.001 book. That’s partly because we were writing it for MIT. You want to talk about higher-order procedures, so the obvious thing you can do is you can express the idea of an integral. So that’s an obstacle for lots of places. Remember, at MIT the context we were writing in is every person who took the course had just had a semester of calculus."
http://www.codequarterly.com/2011/hal-abelson/ http://www.codequarterly.com/2011/hal-abelson/
- jallmann 14y agoThat is really a wonderful interview. Thanks for sharing.
- calibraxis 14y agoYou're welcome. You might also enjoy Rich Hickey's interview, as I did. http://www.codequarterly.com/2011/rich-hickey/ http://www.codequarterly.com/2011/rich-hickey/ "And, once there [writing only code that matters], you are able to achieve a very high degree of focus, such as you would when playing Go, or playing a musical instrument, or meditating. And then, as with those activities, there can be a feeling of elation that accompanies that mental state of focus."
- cturner 14y agoThanks. The mathiness has been an obstacle for me. It's not that I'm incapable of groking the ideas, just that when I sit down to play with a language I haven't yet mastered I don't also want to be learning tangential concepts. Still, I love it, and keep coming back to it. It's so readable, and scheme changed my brain.