Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!mcvax!kth!draken!d87-hho
From: d87-hho@nada.kth.se (Henrik Holmstr|m)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Texts on fundamentals of progra
Summary: Open your eyes
Message-ID: <915@draken.nada.kth.se>
Date: 22 Apr 89 13:31:50 GMT
References: <1203@microsoft.UUCP> <207600019@s.cs.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: d87-hho@nada.kth.se (Henrik Holmstr|m)
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Lines: 42

In article <207600019@s.cs.uiuc.edu> carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>/* Written  7:56 pm  Mar 31, 1989 by w-colinp@microsoft.UUCP in s.cs.uiuc.edu:comp.lang.c */
>/* ---------- "Re: Texts on fundamentals of progra" ---------- */
>It isn't C, and it's pretty heavy going alone, but "The Structure and
>Interpretation of Computer Programs", by Abelson & Sussman (the textbook
>for the first year CS intro for CS and EE programs at MIT) will teach
>almost anyone a hell of a lot.  This goes for rank beginners through
>Dennis Ritchie.  The C-Scheme compiler is available from MIT.
>/* End of text from s.cs.uiuc.edu:comp.lang.c */

Agree. Good for C programmers too. I strongly recomend the book. And as you
all know, there is a free Gnu scheme available.

>flamage() {
>*Blech* I took a class in which we used that book and MIT-scheme, and
>it was the worst class I've ever had. Most of my hatred for LISP-like
>languages stems from my experiences with those two items. An

I took it too. It was pure pleasure.

>The book wasn't so bad, but I never found anything in it that wasn't
>either trivially obvious, useless, or something any non-novice should
>know anyway. My experience with students learning Scheme vs. C is that
>as bad as C is, it's not nearly as bad as Scheme.

You missed the point completly. The course is *not* a Scheme course. It uses
Scheme as tool to talk about many important topics like OOP and other forms
of abstraction.
I think the course is fantastic. And note, I've been a C-programmer long before
I even know Lisp existed and I'm using C as my main language. But the point is
the ideas and they are usable in any programming language.
It seems to me that you are so anti-Lisp that you were unable to see all the
good stuff.

>As a high school student
>I picked up C in a couple weeks, to the point where I code write code
>freely. 3 years after first learning Scheme, I have still not reached
>that point.
>}

Don't you think your hate can have affected the learning process?
And as we all know, some people need longer time than others.