11 ms·

Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy

109 points by kenferry 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
muyuu 13y ago
Should probably mention somewhere in the link that this is iOS only.
grannyg00se 13y ago
If it's a shared whiteboard with embedded video chat how it it tied to a particular book? They indicate that they are starting with two books for now.
- kenferry 13y ago
  The app looks like this when you launch it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zmj9poc7nic7wzz/Homescreen%20Final.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/zmj9poc7nic7wzz/Homescreen%20Final... If you enroll in SICP, we find you someone to work with. (You can always just call someone you already know, though.)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
tyrion 13y ago
Too bad I don't have an iPad, I would love to try out this app :/ Are you planning to develop an android version anytime soon?
- kenferry 13y ago
  At the moment, more trying to make things work well at least _somewhere_. :-) Would love to do Android, though.
grannyg00se 13y ago
"We find that Understudy is much more natural than Skype for collaboration (as opposed to for idle chatting). The whiteboard canvas lets you gesture and make visual references, and you can attach PDFs or images." This is a false analogy. Skype isn't limited to idle chatting and you can also attach PDFs or images into a skype chat. And you can also screen share on Skype so any paint program would double as a whiteboard. I suspect the use case for Understudy is much better served with Understudy than Skype, but the way the comparison is presented on the site doesn't really help, and may be interpreted as completely disingenuous.
davexunit 13y ago
To repeat what I said in the SICP thread from a couple of days ago: Folks, you don't need proprietary software or an iThing to get help with SICP. Hop on #scheme on freenode and check out http://schemers.org/ http://schemers.org/ for resources. Get yourself a good Scheme implementation like GNU Guile or Racket and get hacking.
- a3n 13y ago
  In Racket, which Scheme?
  - kenferry 13y ago
    This one! http://www.neilvandyke.org/racket-sicp/ http://www.neilvandyke.org/racket-sicp/ #lang planet neil/sicp
- kenferry 13y ago
  I do love IRC, but what Understudy gives you is a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares. It means that Thursday evening, when you're tired, it's easier to pick yourself up and work, because doing so gets you a _better_conversation_ on Saturday. I'm a cellist - this comes from private music lessons. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom's_2_Sigma_Problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom's_2_Sigma_Problem . In that study, the median person learning one-to-one performed at the 98th percentile in a control group. That's huge!
  - dmunoz 13y ago
    You said the (exact) same thing in the thread this blog post spun out from, and I didn't bother to challenge it, but I will now. You're not being fair to IRC. IRC can just as easily give you a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares. Private messages exist, among other means. Moreover, the experience can be completely asynchronous. You don't have to both be available to make progress. The main benefit of something like Understudy is to mediate the introduction of users to mentors. There is something to gain from a sustained conversation with the same mentor, but Understudy can make no more guarantees about the availability of your mentor than IRC can. Furthermore, that both the mentor and the mentee have to pay $5 if they're using the app more than two hours a month demolishes the potential userbase, not to mention that you also need an iOS device. IRC is multi-platform, free, and already attracts the sort of individuals that would be capable and willing to mentor users in something like SICP.
apenney 13y ago
This is pretty timely, I tried and failed to get into Chapter 2 of SICP just a few months ago and eventually got discouraged and ran out of steam. I signed up for this, maybe it'll help keep me accountable and on track.
oskarth 13y ago
This looks great and I would love to use it for both SICP and learning how to draw. I don't mind paying for online services like these. However, I don't have an iPad, but I do have an iphone and an MBA. Where does that leave me and all the other potential customers like me?
- kenferry 13y ago
  Sorry about that! The thing is, a tablet is very well suited to the whiteboard, and we find that the whiteboard _really_ helps for this kind of working collaboration. It makes it very natural to gesture and discuss visually. Understudy works in proportion to how good of a connection it fosters. You really want the tool to vanish, and to forget that you're not really in the same room. For non-work stuff, like talking to my parents, the phone does decently at that for me, but for trying to collaborate videochat is not very effective, in my experience. Understudy's whiteboard/videochat does do it for me. (As far as Android vs iPad – well, have to start somewhere! Also, I worked at Apple for 7 years, so it's definitely the environment where I'm quickest.)
  - monkmartinez 13y ago
    If the whiteboard is the central theme, why are you marketing to a capacitive screen? This is a sincere and humble question.
    - kenferry 13y ago
      As opposed to starting with the MS Surface? Well, I'd say the central theme is human connection, and then the question is what you need to make that work. All I can say is that the iPad's screen seems to be over the hump for this! We have beta testers, and they honestly seem to be doing great. You can see a few tweets they've made at https://twitter.com/understudyapp https://twitter.com/understudyapp . You might also be interested in this video of it in use - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrdjKvka558 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrdjKvka558 . If you look at it _statically_, it looks bad, but when you see it in motion, you see that it's effectively gesture. You're trying to visually communicate and gesture, not create an artifact to refer back to. My handwriting on real physical whiteboards is terrible, but they still work. It would be interesting to try on an MS Surface. To literally answer your question, (1) there are a lot more iPads out there than Surfaces, (2) I worked at Apple for 7.5 years, on the Cocoa Frameworks for most of it, and I'm very productive in this environment.
wasd 13y ago
Just as a few other comments have mentioned, I'm interested but I don't have an iPad or any tablet for that matter.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
hardwaresofton 13y ago
I'm not sure I'm convinced of the payment model... Charging for human interaction seems like a losing proposition... What's to stop a competitor from coming along, doing the same thing, but removing the cost? And what does the cost represent? Server drain? use of the drawing platform? there's gotta be a better business model out there... maybe you can integrate with amazon and make this a more general read-with-friends kind of thing and sell the reading pattern data (that seems like it would be valuable to companies like amazon or barnes & noble)...?
plinkplonk 13y ago
Didn't this come up a couple of days ago? I suspect some 'growth hacker' is finding a way around HN's spam defences.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- dmunoz 13y ago
  Not really. The submitter here replied in a post "Why and How to Start Your SICP Trek" [0] with how this app could assist, and now it's a blog post. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7546244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7546244
monkmartinez 13y ago
The idea is solid, but the technology to get there is crap. People who have used a wacom or ntrig based tablet can tell you drawing and writing with anything else is, to put it bluntly, complete shit. Drawing and writing on capacitive screens is a horrible experience; No palm rejection, no pressure sensitivity, and accuracy is problematic. There is a reason why note takers, artists and others are pursuing options for tablets and PC's that have digitizer technology baked in. Look at Crabfu, Gabe of penny arcade and the hundreds of iPad vs. Galaxy Note vs Surface Pro youtube videos. The Surface Pro is a very compelling device if you strip away the emotional baggage related to MSFT.
- kenferry 13y ago
  This is neither art nor note taking, it's communication. :-) It's visual anchoring and gesturing - after the call's over you don't end up looking back at what you did almost at all. We didn't know if the tech would work, but we have enough beta testers at this point that I'm pretty sure that it does. Here's a video of a couple people talking some SICP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrdjKvka558 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrdjKvka558
  - monkmartinez 13y ago
    The video is great! One, Is it possible for a user to "save" the session? After all, it may be some time before they get back together. Two, the quality of written aspect, which is central to the "communication" idea is very poor in comparison to what I can achieve on my Galaxy Note 3 with wacom digitizer. I am a lefty with very small handwriting and its still very legible on the GN3... I can't wait to get a bigger tablet with the digitizer baked in. I think the idea could be useful for much more than SICP, however the ability to save and actually read what you have written would be killer features.
    - kenferry 13y ago
      > One, Is it possible for a user to "save" the session? Yup! Old sessions are basically saved as documents. > Two, the quality of written aspect, which is central to the "communication" idea is very poor in comparison to what I can achieve on my Galaxy Note 3 with wacom digitizer. You didn't quite state the question there. :-) If things work out, we'll definitely want to do Android too. > I think the idea could be useful for much more than SICP, however the ability to save and actually read what you have written would be killer features. Hope so! We're starting with SICP and Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain[1], but it's really easy for us to add other courses. We really have something like Coursera in mind. [1] Note: For the drawing book, you're not doing the drawing exercises _in_ the app, you're doing them on paper and then talking them over. https://www.dropbox.com/s/bkjrbclpda8fg5y/Drawing%20Final.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/bkjrbclpda8fg5y/Drawing%20Final.pn...
icosahedronman 13y ago
We need similar things to help us get through TAOCP, Hacker's Delight and Programming Pearls. (God so much to do... so little energy/time :( )
- bridger 13y ago
  I can certainly see those as the next texts that we add!

109 points by kenferry 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

muyuu 13y ago

Should probably mention somewhere in the link that this is iOS only.

grannyg00se 13y ago

If it's a shared whiteboard with embedded video chat how it it tied to a particular book? They indicate that they are starting with two books for now.

kenferry 13y ago
The app looks like this when you launch it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zmj9poc7nic7wzz/Homescreen%20Final.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/zmj9poc7nic7wzz/Homescreen%20Final... If you enroll in SICP, we find you someone to work with. (You can always just call someone you already know, though.)
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

tyrion 13y ago

Too bad I don't have an iPad, I would love to try out this app :/ Are you planning to develop an android version anytime soon?

kenferry 13y ago
At the moment, more trying to make things work well at least _somewhere_. :-) Would love to do Android, though.

grannyg00se 13y ago

"We find that Understudy is much more natural than Skype for collaboration (as opposed to for idle chatting). The whiteboard canvas lets you gesture and make visual references, and you can attach PDFs or images." This is a false analogy. Skype isn't limited to idle chatting and you can also attach PDFs or images into a skype chat. And you can also screen share on Skype so any paint program would double as a whiteboard. I suspect the use case for Understudy is much better served with Understudy than Skype, but the way the comparison is presented on the site doesn't really help, and may be interpreted as completely disingenuous.

davexunit 13y ago

To repeat what I said in the SICP thread from a couple of days ago: Folks, you don't need proprietary software or an iThing to get help with SICP. Hop on #scheme on freenode and check out http://schemers.org/ http://schemers.org/ for resources. Get yourself a good Scheme implementation like GNU Guile or Racket and get hacking.

a3n 13y ago
In Racket, which Scheme?
- kenferry 13y ago
  This one! http://www.neilvandyke.org/racket-sicp/ http://www.neilvandyke.org/racket-sicp/ #lang planet neil/sicp
kenferry 13y ago
I do love IRC, but what Understudy gives you is a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares. It means that Thursday evening, when you're tired, it's easier to pick yourself up and work, because doing so gets you a _better_conversation_ on Saturday. I'm a cellist - this comes from private music lessons. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom's_2_Sigma_Problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom's_2_Sigma_Problem . In that study, the median person learning one-to-one performed at the 98th percentile in a control group. That's huge!
- dmunoz 13y ago
  You said the (exact) same thing in the thread this blog post spun out from, and I didn't bother to challenge it, but I will now. You're not being fair to IRC. IRC can just as easily give you a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares. Private messages exist, among other means. Moreover, the experience can be completely asynchronous. You don't have to both be available to make progress. The main benefit of something like Understudy is to mediate the introduction of users to mentors. There is something to gain from a sustained conversation with the same mentor, but Understudy can make no more guarantees about the availability of your mentor than IRC can. Furthermore, that both the mentor and the mentee have to pay $5 if they're using the app more than two hours a month demolishes the potential userbase, not to mention that you also need an iOS device. IRC is multi-platform, free, and already attracts the sort of individuals that would be capable and willing to mentor users in something like SICP.

apenney 13y ago

This is pretty timely, I tried and failed to get into Chapter 2 of SICP just a few months ago and eventually got discouraged and ran out of steam. I signed up for this, maybe it'll help keep me accountable and on track.

oskarth 13y ago

This looks great and I would love to use it for both SICP and learning how to draw. I don't mind paying for online services like these. However, I don't have an iPad, but I do have an iphone and an MBA. Where does that leave me and all the other potential customers like me?

kenferry 13y ago
Sorry about that! The thing is, a tablet is very well suited to the whiteboard, and we find that the whiteboard _really_ helps for this kind of working collaboration. It makes it very natural to gesture and discuss visually. Understudy works in proportion to how good of a connection it fosters. You really want the tool to vanish, and to forget that you're not really in the same room. For non-work stuff, like talking to my parents, the phone does decently at that for me, but for trying to collaborate videochat is not very effective, in my experience. Understudy's whiteboard/videochat does do it for me. (As far as Android vs iPad – well, have to start somewhere! Also, I worked at Apple for 7 years, so it's definitely the environment where I'm quickest.)
- monkmartinez 13y ago
  If the whiteboard is the central theme, why are you marketing to a capacitive screen? This is a sincere and humble question.
  - kenferry 13y ago
    As opposed to starting with the MS Surface? Well, I'd say the central theme is human connection, and then the question is what you need to make that work. All I can say is that the iPad's screen seems to be over the hump for this! We have beta testers, and they honestly seem to be doing great. You can see a few tweets they've made at https://twitter.com/understudyapp https://twitter.com/understudyapp . You might also be interested in this video of it in use - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrdjKvka558 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrdjKvka558 . If you look at it _statically_, it looks bad, but when you see it in motion, you see that it's effectively gesture. You're trying to visually communicate and gesture, not create an artifact to refer back to. My handwriting on real physical whiteboards is terrible, but they still work. It would be interesting to try on an MS Surface. To literally answer your question, (1) there are a lot more iPads out there than Surfaces, (2) I worked at Apple for 7.5 years, on the Cocoa Frameworks for most of it, and I'm very productive in this environment.

wasd 13y ago

Just as a few other comments have mentioned, I'm interested but I don't have an iPad or any tablet for that matter.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

hardwaresofton 13y ago

I'm not sure I'm convinced of the payment model... Charging for human interaction seems like a losing proposition... What's to stop a competitor from coming along, doing the same thing, but removing the cost? And what does the cost represent? Server drain? use of the drawing platform? there's gotta be a better business model out there... maybe you can integrate with amazon and make this a more general read-with-friends kind of thing and sell the reading pattern data (that seems like it would be valuable to companies like amazon or barnes & noble)...?

plinkplonk 13y ago

Didn't this come up a couple of days ago? I suspect some 'growth hacker' is finding a way around HN's spam defences.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dmunoz 13y ago
Not really. The submitter here replied in a post "Why and How to Start Your SICP Trek" [0] with how this app could assist, and now it's a blog post. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7546244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7546244

monkmartinez 13y ago

The idea is solid, but the technology to get there is crap. People who have used a wacom or ntrig based tablet can tell you drawing and writing with anything else is, to put it bluntly, complete shit. Drawing and writing on capacitive screens is a horrible experience; No palm rejection, no pressure sensitivity, and accuracy is problematic. There is a reason why note takers, artists and others are pursuing options for tablets and PC's that have digitizer technology baked in. Look at Crabfu, Gabe of penny arcade and the hundreds of iPad vs. Galaxy Note vs Surface Pro youtube videos. The Surface Pro is a very compelling device if you strip away the emotional baggage related to MSFT.

kenferry 13y ago
This is neither art nor note taking, it's communication. :-) It's visual anchoring and gesturing - after the call's over you don't end up looking back at what you did almost at all. We didn't know if the tech would work, but we have enough beta testers at this point that I'm pretty sure that it does. Here's a video of a couple people talking some SICP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrdjKvka558 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrdjKvka558
- monkmartinez 13y ago
  The video is great! One, Is it possible for a user to "save" the session? After all, it may be some time before they get back together. Two, the quality of written aspect, which is central to the "communication" idea is very poor in comparison to what I can achieve on my Galaxy Note 3 with wacom digitizer. I am a lefty with very small handwriting and its still very legible on the GN3... I can't wait to get a bigger tablet with the digitizer baked in. I think the idea could be useful for much more than SICP, however the ability to save and actually read what you have written would be killer features.
  - kenferry 13y ago
    > One, Is it possible for a user to "save" the session? Yup! Old sessions are basically saved as documents. > Two, the quality of written aspect, which is central to the "communication" idea is very poor in comparison to what I can achieve on my Galaxy Note 3 with wacom digitizer. You didn't quite state the question there. :-) If things work out, we'll definitely want to do Android too. > I think the idea could be useful for much more than SICP, however the ability to save and actually read what you have written would be killer features. Hope so! We're starting with SICP and Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain[1], but it's really easy for us to add other courses. We really have something like Coursera in mind. [1] Note: For the drawing book, you're not doing the drawing exercises _in_ the app, you're doing them on paper and then talking them over. https://www.dropbox.com/s/bkjrbclpda8fg5y/Drawing%20Final.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/bkjrbclpda8fg5y/Drawing%20Final.pn...

icosahedronman 13y ago

We need similar things to help us get through TAOCP, Hacker's Delight and Programming Pearls. (God so much to do... so little energy/time :( )

bridger 13y ago
I can certainly see those as the next texts that we add!