
CS61A Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - miobrien
http://wla.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/fa11/61a-python/content/www/index.html
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jordonwii
In case anyone's curious, this is a rather old iteration of the course (2011,
right after it switched from scheme to Python).

The current iteration is at [http://cs61a.org](http://cs61a.org) \- taught by
two undergrads for the summer.

The most recent two iterations taught by professors are
[http://fa16.cs61a.org](http://fa16.cs61a.org) and
[http://sp17.cs61a.org](http://sp17.cs61a.org)

~~~
jpeg_hero
I can't even conceive of CS61a not being scheme/lisp.

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CalChris
Yeah, I liked Scheme but that was the last I ever saw of it. They didn't even
use it in CS 188. Now they beat Python into your head like a catechism. And
while I really liked Scheme, I didn't like SICP which like the bible we
actually never read and only worshipped.

~~~
tmccrmck
> And while I really liked Scheme, I didn't like SICP which like the bible we
> actually never read and only worshipped.

Uh when did you take it? When I took the self-paced version with Harvey we
read SICP. I mean, I'm sure some students skipped readings but they were still
assigned nevertheless.

~~~
CalChris
Harvey worshipped SICP so that makes sense.

I took 61A with Hilfinger (who usually taught 61B) and I didn't crack the
book. His lectures and notes were very thorough. I can't remember if there
were readings on the syllabus that I skipped but I didn't crack the book.
Moreover, I was always big on doing the reading before class. Class was a
review.

Later when I did read SICP, I didn't like it. Maybe that was like reading the
book after seeing the movie. Dunno, but I didn't like it.

As an aside, there was a whole subculture of students who read nothing but
just did the HW and worked past tests and sets. They did amazingly well. I had
a study buddy who did that in EE20. I prepped him for the final and he _told_
me he'd beat me; he narrowly did. He graduated with a 3.9+ GPA in EECS which
is insane. He hated ideas then and now. But he tested insanely well. It was
just pattern matching.

~~~
tmccrmck
> Later when I did read SICP, I didn't like it. Maybe that was like reading
> the book after seeing the movie. Dunno, but I didn't like it.

Which introductory CS books did you enjoy? I still love my copy of _Patterson
and Hennessy_ but it is dry compared to SICP. To someone who had only ever
programmed in C++ before 61A, SICP felt like an adventure.

> As an aside, there was a whole subculture of students who read nothing but
> just did the HW and worked past tests and sets. They did amazingly well.

Yep. Sadly this has only become more common with the rapid growth of the
major. Most of my friends were brilliant but they didn't love EECS. If they
had been 10 years older they probably would have majored in math or physics
but they felt pressured to study something that would get them a job. They
were able to do well just by studying old tests.

We would only get old tests from HKN but many students were somehow able to
illegally obtain them. Cheating has only become more rampant and more
sophisticated -- the department is going to have to address it at some point
instead of sticking their head in the sand.

~~~
CalChris
I strongly prefer Patterson and Hennessy _Computer Organization and Design_ to
their _Computer Architecture_ which I really don't like; if I do look
something up in CA, it's in an old edition. The _Dragon Book_ 2nd ed is
awesome. We didn't have a book for 61B. I didn't like the OS book whatever it
was. Norvig + Russell is pretty darned good. The notes for CS 70 are awesome
as are the CS 161 notes.

If Kubi is teaching just take the course.

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sudoscript
I did this course a while back just when I was getting started on my self-
taught journey. I'd highly recommend this over Harvard's CS50 or MIT's intro
course. This has great coverage of how a computer program works, without being
too pedantic.

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wideem
I feel that the biggest strength of CS50 is its wide scope of technologies
used. Provides a real great introduction to the field of computer science

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zealsham
This Course does not come close to cs50 in anyway. cs50 makes computer
programming look intresting to a lawyer

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cchubitunes
Yes, CS50 is quite lively but in terms of quality, 61A beats CS50 hands down.

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sdiq
I fear the current 'iterations' might not last long because of the video
aspect. I have been following two other courses from Berkeley: data8.org and
datastructur.es. However, because of a certain directive (and I don't fault
university for it) the video lectures are no longer public. Sad.

~~~
AlexeyBrin
Seems that CS61A video lectures have subtitles so it shouldn't be a problem:
[http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/fa16/](http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/fa16/)

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ivan_ah
Really nice course. Labs come with solutions and would make an excellent
"challenge pack" for anyone learning Python and CS right now.

