[CalChris]

SICP shouldn’t be on this list. Few people actually read it and most just worship it unread like a bible. It was Hilfinger’s assigned text in 61A at Berkeley but without any assigned readings.

On the other hand, The Little Schemer which has a lot of the important ideas from SICP might be on a list such as this. But it’s too accessible to warrant much respect.

[kamaal]

THIS PLACE IS RESERVED FOR JELLY BEAN STAINS .

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The whole The Little|Seasoned|Reasoned Schemer plus its other variants The Little ML'er|Java|Prover|Typer are some of the most mind bending books that you will ever read ever. And it is not the just the end result. Reading these books well will teach you socratic method of teaching/learning, which is great in itself. And will help you teach yourself a wide variety of concepts.

Only real problem is many people struggle to adopt to that socratic approach and for somebody who is not into it will just not get it. Have seen this time and again, while I had my jaw on the floor reading them, some of my colleagues could barely progress beyond the first few pages. So they aren't exactly accessible to everyone.

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NOW GO CONS SOME CAKE ONTO YOUR MOUTH.

[Jtsummers]

Why are people downvoting and flagging this comment? The top and bottom are literal quotes from The Little Schemer and the rest is just a short review of the books and an honest assessment of the trouble with the Socratic method (it doesn't work for everyone).

[komali2]

Because it's a weird comment that looks like spam and is basically incomprehensible for it until you added context. Thanks for doing that, btw.

[kamaal]

The Little _________ books themselves are strange, you will either get them or you won't. So it is already a binary classification. The books don't follow a normal book like flow and its basically a giant teacher-student like 1 - 1 mentoring-- building the lesson up from basic axioms, revealing the rules of play slowly, and helping you discover the concepts yourself along the way.

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TOP ANCHOVY WITH CHEESE.

[komali2]

> The Little _________ books themselves are strange,

I didn't know this, because I didn't read them lol. How was I supposed to know that?

[rayxi271828]

I love these books! I re-do them every few years (well close to 10 years after I've read my copy for the first time). Great great fun.

[sfpotter]

I don't like technical books that are infantile for no reason.

[Apocryphon]

Learn You a Haskell, for Great Good! is the same way. Wonder what's up with functional languages that leads them to do this.

Well, I suppose there's also why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby

[kamaal]

>>Wonder what's up with functional languages that leads them to do this.

One way to teach dry math'y concepts is to make them fun to learn. Serious Math people mind find them irritating but for the remainder crowd it is a fun exercise.

[Apocryphon]

Sure, though I suppose fun is in the eye of the beholder. Grokking Algorithms is illustrated with cartoons and examples that kids could understand, but it doesn't indulge in the same weird quirky whimsy that some of these texts do. It's almost as if they're written in some lost lolcat dialect.

[kamaal]

It is not infantile, it is just a different way of approaching a problem. Instead of telling you what things are, they just ask you questions so that by answering them you discover the things yourself.

There is a big difference between two approaches. In the former you get facts as knowledge. In the latter your invent the knowledge yourself, and understand the processes, whys and hows you got there. The latter is a far better way because its hard to forget what you invented yourself.

[yakshaving_jgt]

How does the space reserved for jellybean stains guide the reader towards the desired problem-solving approach?

[kamaal]

Well I'm guessing you haven't read the book yet.

Basically all throughout the book(s), they authors use food names as variable, function names etc. It is indeed a nice idea because people do tend to associate good memories with delicious food. Especially if the food is greasy or sweet!

That quote This space is reserved for Jelly Bean stains is basically a filler sentence at the end of a chapter on a page, which happens to be high up in the page, the remainder of the page is basically empty, so they put it in as a joke.

This is not any different than the joke at the beginning of the 'Camel Book', Laziness, Impatience and Hubris, the three great virtues of a programmer.

You really should read those books, its one of those unique kinds of books that use a very innovative(albeit a very ancient) technique to teach you some very mind bending concepts. Its is possible that the approach will help you in understanding other things as well.

[yakshaving_jgt]

I'm not taking a position on whether or not the infantilism is appropriate, so whether or not I have read the book is neither here nor there.

The previous commenter characterised the text as needlessly infantile. It seemed clear enough to me that they were referring to the jokes about jelly bean stains. I am confused why you interpreted their challenge as being about some approach to problem solving.

> Its is possible that the approach will help you in understanding other things as well.

This is either such a general statement that it isn't worth saying, or it is direct condescension which I don't appreciate.

[pksebben]

I've always seen a sense of humor as an essential component of problem solving. Stressy, serious, businesslike modes tend to get stuck in the weeds and miss the forest etc

[Apocryphon]

This blog is such a classic for that.

http://computationaltales.blogspot.com

[sfpotter]

It isn’t an essential part of problem solving. I think the fact that you think any technical material that isn’t humorous is automatically “stressy” may mostly say something about you… :\

For what it’s worth, I do have a sense of humor. Harvey Birdman is one of my favorite shows. The Sebben and Sebben employee orientation video is on another level.

[yakshaving_jgt]

Seems like a false dichotomy to me. Authors can choose to write plainly and clearly.

[monksy]

I've been saying and feeling this way for quite a while.

For example, someone wrote a book on Kafka streams for kids. It just dumb founded me that someone created it for that audience. The audacity to suggest that kids should learn about that/have something for them. It's a bit weird and doesn't teach lessons outside of the book material.

[kamaal]

>>It's a bit weird and doesn't teach lessons outside of the book material.

Actually introducing some of these concepts in an abstract sense can help the kid appreciate subject at hand, and initiate them into more serious study.

Imagine telling a kid they could use a bunch of their friends and using map-reduce to count all the dogs in a park(send each to a section in the park, ask them to count the dogs[map], add all them at the end[reduce]).

Many of these concepts can get kids excited about STEM which is good!

[sfpotter]

Why is it good to get kids excited about STEM?

[kamaal]

Well for a lot of reason. Firstly they pay better. Secondly, we want more and more kids especially women and marginalised communities to participate more in STEM. Giving them early exposure to things helps.

Also STEM education in general contains useful life skills to have. Having working knowledge of Math, and being able to reason rationally in general can help you in financial things later in life.

We aspire to have a populace with scientific temper.