Posted by gjvc 17 hours ago
It is possible to use pretty much any decent Scheme system with SICP, but the language has changed since even the Second Edition, so I don't recommend it. That said, once you are working on your own projects, nothing stops you from using a different system, even though you might have to RTFM to see modern equivalents to ancient idioms.
I was just about to ask just that question?
Thank you, SM
In reality you get lectures from individuals that became professors because they are great at politics/research but not at teaching (very different skill).
If you even get them and not their 25 year old assistants.
And this is apparently super common even in ivy league universities as Youtube lessons have shown me over and over.
Be thankful when you get the 25 year old PhD students & post-docs. They care more about teaching and remember learning the material recently and are more willing to talk & help you.
Plenty of courses taught by brilliant individuals that were just bad at teaching or borderline not prepared.
Some courses (like biochemistry) were effectively useless as de facto you had to memorize 600 pages of Lehninger's book anyway. There's nothing to understand in the Krebs cycle.
I also vividly remember exams like advanced algebra were the professor genuinely did nothing but rewrite canned content on a board and could not really shed light on anything, you were on your own.
I think you have the “even” backwards. Elite research first universities have this problem more than teaching-first, low research output programs.
unless you mean 'systems programming' as just 'the crap one does to try to glue together all the grotty pre-existing systems' and 'developing a good sense of taste about 3rd party libraries', in which case no, its not really very relevant.
although even here there is insight, I watched a video of Sussman describing why they were putting down SICP and demanding that MIT develop new introductory courses. he was so graceful and considered, putting his polished jewels away. the time when we could reasonably be expected to see across and through all the layers of abstraction was over.
but I haven't gone through the video lectures or even all of SICP. but those that I did have had a lasting impact. particularly the erasure of the declarative/procedural dichotomy..thats been a very useful tool
Is there any way to clean them up?