
SICP - summary of 10 months working through the entire book - pchristensen
http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2008/04/18/sicp-conclusion/
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technoguyrob
Great job! I'm planning on going through my entire algebra textbook this
summer (Dummit and Foote; 2000+ exercises!) to finally master group, ring,
field, and homology theory! So far, I've done well in the courses but still
feel unprepared for the prelim exams. Wish me luck! I'll post my solutions for
all to see after the marathon.

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donw
Best to post during the marathon, not after, for three reasons. One, because
you're going to have downtime, and writing is a good way to make productive,
yet relaxing, use of that downtime. Two, because the evidence of mastery is
the ability to explain, not simply to perform. Three, because I want to read
about your experiences.

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SwellJoe
"Two, because the evidence of mastery is the ability to explain, not simply to
perform."

So true. I learn more by writing about things than by reading about them (of
course, the former includes a lot of the latter, but it's so much more
productive when you're reading towards a specific goal...and if the goal is
explaining the subject clearly and entertainingly you really have to have a
firm grasp of the subject). It just seems to activate my brain in ways that
merely reading never quite does. Doing the exercises overcomes the passivity
of reading to some degree, but writing down what you learned takes it up
another notch.

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technoguyrob
By the way, this would be a good time to share your (yes, you, dear reader of
this comment) experiences trekking through every exercise in a book. I assume
this will be a more common experience for graduate students, but has anyone
else participated in the beautiful endeavor that is simply devouring an entire
text?

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ashu
One of the things I would so dearly love to do - especially something in
Maths. I am waiting for my startup to succeed :P

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icey
Does anyone know offhand why he switched from CL to Scheme? He doesn't really
mention why, and I wasn't sure if it was because the book was Scheme based or
because of some other issue he had with CL.

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redline6561
He switched back and forth between them on different sections but wrote about
the initial motivation for that decision here:
[http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2007/08/23/giving-plt-
scheme-a-...](http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2007/08/23/giving-plt-scheme-a-
try/)

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icey
Ah that explains it pretty well, thank you!

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SwellJoe
I've been planning to do the same with several of the courses from AdUni.org
(mainly the areas where I'm weakest--math and algorithms, in particular, but
more Scheme/Lisp doesn't hurt and systems knowledge is always useful). I
ordered the DVDs a couple of years ago and acquired all of the recommended
texts (the ones that aren't available for free online, anyway), but only got
through a few of the early SICP classes before getting sidetracked by other
projects. This has inspired me to dig back in. I'll copy a few of them over to
my lappy and head out to the park or a coffee shop--I'll enjoy the gorgeous
weather and get some studying done.

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donw
I've actually just started reading this today with about the same set of
goals, and so it's nice to see someone finish the thing up. I wasn't thinking
about going through this as part of a long-running blog, but now that I've
found this, it might not be a bad idea to do so with some other my other
undergraduate review...

Speaking of which, does anyone have some good recommendations for a discrete
mathematics textbook, specifically one that includes both theory (proofs) and
application?

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michael_dorfman
It's probably too idiosyncratic to meet your needs, but I really like Knuth's
"Concrete Mathematics"

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tjr
Great book, though it covers a somewhat different subset of topics than those
typically considered "discrete mathematics"...

<http://www.mhhe.com/math/advmath/rosen/> ..is what we used in college; I
found it hard to read in spots, but haven't really found anything overall
better.

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abless
Slightly off-topic, but still related to Lisp: what do you guys think of ML
(as compared to Lisp, for example). I learned this in my first year at college
and I like it better and better the more I work with it. It seems that Lisp is
much more common, though. Any ideas why that's the case?

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doubleplus
Ha! I was going to do the exact same thing. Maybe I'll do it for TAOCP instead
if I ever get around to it.

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danohuiginn
Doing every exercise in TAOCP would be....quite some achievement, to put it
mildly

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doubleplus
I meant just blogging my experience working through it.

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michael_dorfman
I'd certainly read a blog that shares the experience of working through TAOCP.

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rapind
very cool. makes me want to do the same.

