(Actually, I bought the book and was just working through the Prologue today. And didn't turn the page, it appears. )
Thank you for your response. More specifically, what I was referring to was a response that has gotten a fair bit of circulation given by Gerry Sussman when asked why SICP was no longer taught by him at MIT. You can read more about this here: http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/5335 Personally, I have tried to learn programming (self-teaching) via how, as you state, 99.9% of texts teach it - syntax and hacking first, and I have just about given up. I find it pure torture (and I found working through the Prologue torture, but was expecting that since I believe that was your point). Hence, I purchased your book (2e) and also SICP. However, since finding that quote by Sussman I feel more lost than ever. He seems to be stating that what made SICP so relevant 20 to 30 years ago has gone. So it is great I have an author of HtDP in this thread! I understand programming by poking as the process of researching APIs and hacking together libraries until something works, similar in essence I think to the Prologue of HtDP. And perhaps this hacking and sewing together and ensuing code bloat is aided by ever expanding hardware capacities in storage and speed, I don't know. So, Matthias, if you are still there, how do you understand Sussman's reasoning for quitting SICP (other than he was bored with it)? Is he right? How does HtDP stand up in the face of Sussman's perspective? Does one need the lessons of HtDP if all one is doing is stitching together libraries and APIs? On Wednesday, August 1, 2018 at 3:43:59 PM UTC-4, Matthias Felleisen wrote: > > > > On Aug 1, 2018, at 2:52 PM, Scott <scott....@gmail.com <javascript:>> > wrote: > > > > The end of the Prologue to HtDP2e ends with a section titled You Are a > Programmer Now. If you have read it you know what it contains (if you > haven't read it then you are not likely able to respond intelligently to > this question). > > > This is incorrect. The Prologue ends with “Not!”. See > > https://htdp.org/2018-01-06/Book/part_prologue.html > > > > My question is: in that section are the authors describing "programming > by poking”? > > > Yes. The Prologue describes how 99.99% of the text books teach programming > to contrast it with “good programming” as taught by HtDP. > > — Matthias > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Racket Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to racket-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
