[HN Gopher] Solving SICP
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Solving SICP
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 47 points
Date : 2025-03-04 17:58 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lockywolf.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lockywolf.wordpress.com)
| loevborg wrote:
| Wonderful report! So now we know how long it takes to solve all
| of the problems: 729 hrs.
|
| SICP is hard to work through even if you're just reading but wow,
| the exercises are on another level! I wonder how it compares to,
| say, a physics or biology textbook
| wk_end wrote:
| This is an interesting post in its way, but I hate how it's
| presented. The subject doesn't really call for this impersonation
| of academic rigor, since it's fundamentally an unscientific,
| subjective exercise - "How long did I, one particular computer
| scientist, take to work through this massive and occasionally
| open-ended task?" That's asking for an introspective essay, not a
| battery of tables and graphs.
|
| But I think this is a useful critique of SICP, for those trying
| to teach from it or in particular for those trying to self-study
| it: it wasn't really designed to be done front-to-back (contrary
| to the nonsensical justifications given here); it's not a
| realistic demand of any student, or even necessarily a
| particularly productive use of their time unless they intended to
| move into compiler development. Its problem sets occasionally
| give the illusion that SICP itself will teach you what you need
| to solve these incredibly difficult problems and perform these
| incredible accomplishments, which is partially what's responsible
| for its legendary status. Not recognizing that - and it'd be hard
| to blame a solo learner for that - can be incredibly discouraging
| when one finds that they can't do things with the tools SICP has
| given and blame themselves for not appreciating those tools
| rather than SICP for asking too much and giving too little.
| veqq wrote:
| https://lockywolf.net/2020-10-29_scheme-story.html
|
| Here he shows 2 reviews he gave up on, that he resorted to data
| because he didn't know how to put it in words.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Is there a modern SICP book? I tried to go through it once, but
| immediately got stuck because my math/physics was so rusty that I
| would have to spend more time researching the background than
| actually solving the CS puzzle
| noelwelsh wrote:
| https://cs.brown.edu/people/sk/ and search for books.
|
| Maybe reading this will help:
|
| https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/questions/7478/which-b...
| noelwelsh wrote:
| SICP is a sprawling book. It's been rightly criticised; it is
| inaccessible without a strong maths and (electronic) engineering
| background, it's somewhat unfocused, and its code is archaic. But
| it blew my mind some 20 years ago when I worked through it over
| many train journeys. A more focused, more accessible book would
| be objectively better, but I think it would lose something. SICP,
| with its wild rambling through so many disparate topics, really
| did leave me feeling that I could make the computer do anything.
| agumonkey wrote:
| the expression / circuit bridge in chapter 5 is timeless imo
| closeparen wrote:
| Some of the SICP exercises use math and circuits as the
| "business domain" you are programming about, but you don't need
| independent knowledge of those topics to write the programs.
| The requirements are pretty well specified.
|
| I barely survived Calc 3 and have never taken an engineering
| course. I was fine.
| mk12 wrote:
| Kudos for finishing it. I've gone on a similar quest with
| https://mk12.github.io/sicp, but I'm still on chapter 3. I keep
| getting distracted by new ways of improving the website rather
| than making progress in the book.
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(page generated 2025-03-04 23:00 UTC)