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by bodski
4450 days ago
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Scheme syntax and main semantics are taught by the first couple of lectures IIRC. The main issue for me with the book and to some extent these videos is the assumption of the student being fairly comfortable with certain (fairly basic) mathematical ideas and techniques. This motivated me to pick these up as I went, but meant that the workload was fairly hefty. I still have not made it all the way through! Tools and environment were another matter, getting MIT Scheme installed and running was a bit of a pain. Next time I'll probably try with Racket and Neil van Dyke's SICP support package : http://www.neilvandyke.org/racket-sicp/ From the looks of it support for the 'Picture Language' is supported, looks like fun. :-) There's something reassuring about these vids, possibly the timelessness of what they attempt to convey. The enthusiasm, Sussman's especially for me, shines through well. They were filmed at HP in the 1980s, there's some great examples of 80s fashion going on there at points :-) |
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I followed along with the video lecture in Racket using van Dyke's SICP package, and it went just fine. For all practical purposes I don't know scheme.
It was nice trying to run the sqrt procedure that I had built up, be told that the 'average' procedure was not defined, quickly define it and successfully run sqrt. Such a simple thing, but ... it just worked.
Interesting seeing fractional results displayed as actual fractions.
I think it's very helpful, having programmed for >25 years, that I knew where the lecture was heading. Nevertheless, it was a wow experience. I wish I'd been exposed to this in my early years.