

About 6.002x - ilamont
https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu/

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timClicks
It's interesting that MITx is being explicit that their courses will be hard.
This provides an interesting market differentiation in the online learning
space. The recent Stanford classes & Udacity seem to be aiming for a much more
general audience.

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X-Istence
That's not true. The Stanford AI class up front said that it required a lot of
math. I ended up dropping out because I couldn't catch up quickly enough with
the math requirement to complete the course as well.

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rufugee
So for those of us who would like to take this course _eventually_ but don't
necessarily have the appropriate math experience in, oh, the last decade or
so, are there resources online (or even by book) which would give adequate
preparation in a reasonable timeframe?

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dmnd
Stanford's AI class listed some Khan Academy videos as prerequisites. I saved
the list, you can see them here:

Probability: <http://delicious.com/stacks/view/TMPTxM>

Linear algebra: <http://delicious.com/stacks/view/IqJHli>

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MIT_Hacker
Finally made an account on HackerNews just for this post. The class is
definitely worth taking, especially if you'd like to have a better
understanding of Fourier Transformations.

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nessus42
Are Fourier Transforms covered in 6.002x? I took 6.002 many years ago, and
transforms (Fourier Transforms, Laplace Transforms, Z-Transforms, etc.) were
covered in 6.003 (Signals and Systems), not much in 6.002 (Intro to Circuits).

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othermaciej
I checked the current course catalog, as I was confused in the same way. It
seems like 6.003 is still the main intro class that covers various frequency
domain transforms:
<[http://student.mit.edu/catalog/search.cgi?search=6.003&s...](http://student.mit.edu/catalog/search.cgi?search=6.003&style=verbatim>);

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MIT_Hacker
My bad... I always confused 6.002 & 6.003 because I took them both last
semester...

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joshAg
based on the cal analogues I took, that seems like a bad idea.

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dorianj
I'm nearing completion of an EE at UT Austin, and this MIT class seems to
condense 2 or 3 different semesters of material. I can't decide if this is a
good approach or not.

On one hand, you take one broad class that introduces you to many different
topics. Then you delve into whatever is necessary for your degree.

On the other, you do deeper (but still introductory-level) examinations of
each topic, still with the option to go deeper if you desire.

Ultimately, I don't think either is a clear winner. I don't remember enough
out of my intro circuits class to do a thing with a second-order circuit
without reviewing theory for a bit first.

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leibniz
The mini-bio of Gerald Sussman on the right-hand side states that "Structure
and Interpretation of Computer Programs .. is universally acknowledged as one
of the top ten textbooks in computer science".

I'm curious why they explicitely speak about the top _ten_.

Which are the other 9?

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iso8859-1
What would you want them to say? Top 100? Too modest. Top 3? Too cocky.

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leibniz
This is a misunderstanding. You can read my question as "According to [..] the
SICP is one of the top 10 CS books. Which, do you think, are those?"

I'm just interested because it seems SICP is THE book on programming, and I
wonder: Which other CS books are that prominent? The only one I can think of,
is "Artificial Intelligence - A Modern Approach" by Russell and Norvig.

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microtherion
This is probably going to devolve again into a long discussion, but here's the
books with an academic bent that I was most impressed with (many of them 25
years ago, of course):

"Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools" by Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi
and Jeffrey D. Ullman (a.k.a the "Dragon Book") "The Art of Computer
Programming" by Donald Knuth "Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and
Computation" by John E. Hopcroft and Jeffrey D. Ullman

An amazing book, despite the fact that the core thesis of the first edition,
that we were on the verge of permanent world domination by RISC architectures,
turned out to be dead wrong:

"Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach" John L. Hennessy and David A.
Patterson

Two books by Niklaus Wirth (A bit out of fashion, maybe because they were
written in the "wrong" languages, and maybe because they were TOO concise in
today's world of shovelware books. Wirth is the Strunk & White of CS writers):

"Algorithms and Data Structures" by Niklaus Wirth "Compiler Construction" by
Niklaus Wirth

This book might be the one that impressed me most in my undergraduate studies,
although I can't say I've done much with what I read there:

"Parallel Program Design: A Foundation" by K. Mani Chandy and Jayadev Misra

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mprat
The interesting part about this class is that it is a lab class, yet it is
trying to be accessible to anyone and everyone around the world. It will be
interesting to see the logistics of how the MITx people handle grading,
forums, homework, questions, and all the hard systems problems when 6.002x
finally gets underway.

The other question is how will this compare to 6.002 as it is currently taught
at MIT - will 6.002x be at the same standard? You as a student in 6.002x won't
have the same chance to interact with your classmates as in a traditional MIT
course, so can it be considered the same type of class? This all remains to be
seen.

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rmccue
I'm just starting to study EE in Australia at UQ, so I'm definitely going to
be looking at this and seeing how it compares to my EE courses here.

