
Ask HN: On giving up? - simplegeek
Hi,<p>I am a full-time programmer and don&#x27;t have a degree in CS. I intend to learn Scheme and have been working my way using this book https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Concrete-Abstractions-Introduction-Computer-Science&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0534952119.<p>I had a aim to solve all exercises so it was going well until I got stuck in one of the exercises in Chapter 7. I found it non-trivial and though I let the problem cook in the back of my head for more than a month but I couldn&#x27;t solve it.<p>Now this is effecting me because a)- I am feeling like giving up on this book, because I wanted to solve all exercises and now it seems I cannot b)- after this book I planned to finish SICP but now I think if I cannot solve this one may be I cannot finish SICP as well c)- and I am also beginning to doubt my abilities as a programmer.<p>So I need help from people who learned Scheme (using this book or SICP or at MIT) or who are master of their arts---is it okay if you&#x27;re unable to solve few problems in the book? Should I carry on and finish the book?<p>Part of me says I should carry on and finish whatever exercises I can solve but it&#x27;s sort of discouraging that I am unable to solve a problem after a decent industry experience :(
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victorhugo31337
Sounds like you're suffering from "imposter syndrome". If you've made it to
chapter 7, keep going! I'm certain most people wouldn't have made it to
chapter 3.

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jpeg_hero
took berkeley cs61a one of the ancestral homes of sicp.

it aint easy, and these were bright light 18 year olds.

keep going, skip if you need. look up the answer and learn from it.

but G*d Damn sicp, was it really necessary for one of the first assignments to
do newton's approximations of derivatives!!

sheesh, how about a good old tic-tac-toe game ;)

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calcsam
Plot twist: the exercise was actually impossible.

