Starting to really grok Lisp with Brian Harvey's lectures at Berkeley. | Hacker News Reader

Starting to really grok Lisp with Brian Harvey's lectures at Berkeley.

webcast.berkeley.edu

48 pointsniels_olson6 comments

I'm on the fourth lecture, higher order expressions, part 2 (lambda, ycombinator, etc) Thus far, I like it, I really like it. Anything else of this quality for sophomore or (looking ahead) or junior level CompSci? Also, anyone know if Anarki is stable on PLT Scheme 4.1.1? I installed 3.5.2 for arc, but I think I'm better of learning scheme as a beginner.

Open articleView on HN

Brian Harvey's explanations are quite clear - I took him for the introductory CS class at Berkeley. He certainly has a firm grasp of what he's teaching (as any professor at that level should), but he's also very personable, and puts effort into making himself available to students.

He also emphasizes UI and carefully thought out programs, even at the (intro CS) scheme level.

How do these compare to the SICP lectures, for beginners? Can anyone who has seen them both give a comparison?

(I've always recommended the SICP videos to beginners.)

wow, I had no idea. SICP is sitting on my shelf, I had no idea there was a lecture series that went along with it. I'll take a look at the first few. I will say, I suspect the fact that Harvey's lectures gain currency with the video viewer simply because some of his examples, like map reduce, are very current and topical. I'll check out the first few. But even now I can tell you I prefer scheme from Harvey over Python from How to Think Like a Computer Scientist (http://openbookproject.net/thinkCSpy/index.xhtml), although thinkCSpy is still on my to do list. I can't help but wonder if my physics background is finding functional programming more attractive. However, I still haven't gotten comfy with Emacs, still using Vi and the REPL. BTW, the torrents don't seem to be seeded.

Brian Harvey is the author of some fantastic books on Logo. I've just been getting around to showing MicroWorlds Logo to my kids, but UCB Logo has always been on my machine. I love Lisp so I'm all fired up to check these out.

You might want to check out the Berkeley Foundation for Opportunities in Information Technology (BFOIT).

They have a class which introduces programming and gets kids excited, teaching all the basic concepts in a much more intuitive way than AP computer science (java).

http://www.bfoit.org/itp/itp.html

The language is constantly being improved by Guy Haas, the head instructor of the program.

Schools and instructors all over the world use the lessons provided in their classes.

This is a link to Brian Harvey's home page which includes his book series: Computer Science Logo Style

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com