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Structure and Interpretation of Computer ProgramsClass length: 13 weeks. Start anytime. Creator: kday Status: Established |
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Info about the class
Just wanted to say a few things about this class. If you're not familiar with SICP, it's a pretty famously difficult (but useful) book and class at MIT. I didn't go to MIT or have any special knowledge of this class. I have gone through this part of the book a couple years ago, so I'm a little familiar with this. The course may be a little too aggressively scheduled, so I may cut out material from the end if we get too far behind. Let me know if you have any suggestions for the class. I'm wide open for how it should be structured. 
Oh, one other thing. For the assignments, I listed all of the problems in each section. If I remember correctly, some problems are really difficult and may take a long time to do. So don't worry about not completing everything in each assignment. If something is taking a long time just submit what you have and we'll see if at least everyone combined can get all of them :) What is the schedule? I already see 4 lessons... are we going to have a set time to finish each by, so we can discuss in a somewhat timely manner? The schedule is one lesson per week for a month. This class is really just kicking off today, so we can say the lessons are due on Saturdays. So the first one would be due Jan. 16. The rest would be due on the 23rd, 30th, and then Feb. 6th. How does that sound? We would have a couple days to discuss and then get started on the next lesson. did the class already start? oh, sry, didn't see that post, ignore my previous one Yeah, it's a little confusing. Ideally every class is supposed to start at the 1st of the month, but this one is about a week behind so it will extend a week into February. So what day is "today", I don't see time stamps on messages. I found about this through reddit BTW. Sorry about that. It's starting Monday, Jan. 11th. hah, great, redditors... we're gonna se a lot of "you, sir, are..." in the discussions :) there are time stamps, it says 15 minutes ago, so today is today today Well I just noticed your message was posted only 14 mins. ago. So should still be "today" in most of the world :). For anyone who wants a PDF to read SICP on the train, etc., you can find one on http://deptinfo.unice.fr/~roy/sicp.pdf Here's a couple other formats of SICP: Texinfo (can use in emacs) - http://www.neilvandyke.org/sicp-texi/ Scribd (and downloadable PDF if you login) - http://www.scribd.com/doc/15556326/Structure-and-Interpretation-of-Computer-Programs-SICP I downloaded this PDF and printed out all 5 chapters separately in booklet format in draft mode, using somewhere around 100 sheets of paper and maybe a dollar or two worth of ink...takes some time folding the sheets, though, but it's cheaper than buying the book, and I hate reading entire books on my computer screen. The pictures have been converted to ascii art, and many (all?) mathematical symbols are referred to by their names inside square brackets (somewhat annoying) if they were recognizable in the first place. I think one week is too short ... there's lots in there that we should discuss among ourselves, and I work full-time so I don't have much time. I like discussions of the type ... "got inspired, here's a cool thing I did" or "where is this useful?", or "here's a better/cleaner algorithm". I think 10 days would be better. This site is new, so I realize a lot of work is yet to be done. Is there anything (even something like email reminders) to remind us to do the classwork? And how the heck do you change your avatar? @alex_ndc That's a good point. Hopefully people can do this class with just their free time. It's not supposed to be too much of a burden. However, I think there's a benefit to be on a weekly schedule. It's easier to remember and make it part of a routine. The content of the lessons can be reduced though so that it's easier to complete the assignments. I'm going to leave it as-is for this first week, but I think there's a good chance that the lessons and assignments will be shortened. As the title says, this is just Pt. 1 of a long, difficult class, so there's no problem if stuff gets pushed back to Pt. 2. @alheim I'm glad you're understanding :) At the moment there aren't any email reminders, but that's a good suggestion. That can probably be in place by the end of the week, hopefully. For changing your avatar, that also will be added soon. Right now it just uses a gravatar (http://en.gravatar.com/) based on your email address when you signed up. The short-term fix is to create an account there and update your gravatar. A crunch course-specific avatar will be coming soon. There's always the possibility of creating faster an slower paced versions of this class, separate from this one. I don't think kday made any limitations on that. I personally would prefer this class to be at least at it's current pace. I originally (before learning of this site) had intended to read this entire book and watch the lectures all within a month. The lectures so far have been easy, but I'm still a ways behind in the book (still in chapter 1). So with this class at it's current pace will help motivate me to focus on reading SICP a bit more, putting me closer (though maybe not all the way) to my goal of getting the entire thing done in a month. Disclaimer: I do currently have a little more free time than most people. I agree with alex_ndc, a week is quite a crunch for me. I work full time and also volunteer. I think 10 days will still be challenging, but I'm going to be going crazy trying to knock out a lesson a week. Also, I'm not a fan of this forum software. Can we at least enable comments? I think it might be easier if we just created a subreddit to track this class. I've become a fan of the whole up-voting comments deal. shaggorama: Thanks, it sounds like time is an important factor for a lot of people. I'm evaluating that now. It's going to be difficult to find a pace that suits everyone. Perhaps having some sections as "bonus problems" might help. The first lesson is pretty short and several people have already submitted so I'm going to leave that as-is. The second lesson is going to be shortened a lot. The updated lesson and assignment will be up soon. I'll post a new topic on it to ask for feedback from people to see if it's still too much. The following lessons will be adjusted also. My concern is that if lessons get stretched out to 10 or 14 days that people will get out of habit and may be more likely to forget about the class. But I do want to balance that effect with the fact that people may not be able to dedicate time every week to the class. Maybe I need to come up with an estimated hours per week that the class is designed to take. Would that help? Do you think 5 hours per week is too much or too little? Regarding the forum software, you're right that it's lacking. Voting may take a while to implement, but commenting on individual posts and a threaded discussion shouldn't be too hard. I'll try to add that soon. Thanks for the feedback. I don't think the lessons should get stretched out to 10+ days. I think the better option is to shorten the HW assignments for each week.
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