A Data-Centric Introduction to Computing | Hacker News Reader

A Data-Centric Introduction to Computing

dcic-world.org

106 pointsRafelMri15 comments

In case it doesn't jump out to someone (it didn't to me), one of the authors (Shriram Krishnamurthi) is also an author of HtDP. I cottoned onto this because in the appendix describing differences with HtDP the authors describe ideas weaving back and forth between the two books.

Looks like an interesting angle to data and computer science.

The authors build their own teaching language to accompany the book, called pyret [1]

A cool feature of which is you can have tests as part of your function definition.

[1] https://www.pyret.org/

I read https://www.pyret.org/pyret-code/ and I still think it’s strange to not just use python or some other language that’s more marketable.

Presumably most people learning to code are doing so in the hopes of gainful employment at some point, so it’s handy to learn a language you can put on your resume to maybe get a job.

Industrial languages and their syntax can be learned pretty quickly once core computer science concepts have been grokked.

I teach programming to complete beginners (adults) and I've experienced the exact opposite. For a beginner, the difficulty of learning a new language is really not to be underestimated. The new syntax, small differences in semantics here and there... it all adds up quickly and people get confused and overwhelmed.

All the more reason to use a purpose built teaching language without the cruft and with minimally necessary syntax, no?

I disagree, I think it's more valuable to learn a language that's "real" straight away, because even teaching languages have a lot of details and intricacies, and this way you only have to learn those once (at the beginning).

I'm not saying the other way can't work though, I've just experienced that this is easier.

people w/experience, how does this transfer to other languages once you complete this?

Edit: generally, i would love for any text based or even MOOC based courses to lay, out at the end, where does said student do after finishing the course i.e. what courses the could potentially take.

Am I the only person who literally spent 45 seconds just trying to figure out how to access whatever content was on that page? (Including switching to desktop mode on my phone in case somehow it had just been badly designed for small screen use...)

I gave up in about 5, not wasting my time with that

Btw, this is the github page where you can report your issues with the book

https://github.com/data-centric-computing/dcic-public

How does this book compare to How to Design Programs?

Check the appendix of the book. The authors have made a comparison.

see the author's take on both:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1478125799660261376.html

Is there an "unrolled" version of this book where I don't have to click a button or link after every paragraph to read the next?

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