Show HN: Learning SICP with Understudy
blog.understudyapp.com
blog.understudyapp.com
Folks, you don't need proprietary software or an iThing to get help with SICP. Hop on #scheme on freenode and check out http://schemers.org/ for resources.
Get yourself a good Scheme implementation like GNU Guile or Racket and get hacking.
#lang planet neil/sicpIt means that Thursday evening, when you're tired, it's easier to pick yourself up and work, because doing so gets you a _better_conversation_ on Saturday. I'm a cellist - this comes from private music lessons.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom's_2_Sigma_Problem . In that study, the median person learning one-to-one performed at the 98th percentile in a control group. That's huge!
You're not being fair to IRC. IRC can just as easily give you a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares. Private messages exist, among other means. Moreover, the experience can be completely asynchronous. You don't have to both be available to make progress.
The main benefit of something like Understudy is to mediate the introduction of users to mentors. There is something to gain from a sustained conversation with the same mentor, but Understudy can make no more guarantees about the availability of your mentor than IRC can. Furthermore, that both the mentor and the mentee have to pay $5 if they're using the app more than two hours a month demolishes the potential userbase, not to mention that you also need an iOS device. IRC is multi-platform, free, and already attracts the sort of individuals that would be capable and willing to mentor users in something like SICP.
Studying SICP (or anything) can involve different "modes":
Reading and doing exercises will often be solitary. Q&A could definitely be asynchronous (IRC works great for that!). But we're talking about explaining what you've learned; only in synchronous conversation will you get the back-and-forth "wait what? How's that work?"
A hard part of learning is figuring out exactly what you don't know; conversation is remarkably effective at elucidating that. Where do you feel uncomfortable while speaking? Where does your partner look especially confused or skeptical? The human connection gives you expression, body language, tone of voice, etc. in a quick feedback loop.
(disclaimer: not involved in creating Understudy, but I'm a happy user!)
There is something to be gained from synchronous conversation, but what you've listed can be done asynchronously.
In either case, my point was IRC doesn't have to always be synchronous. When you're both available, the conversation can be synchronous.
I agree that there is a huge benefit from having a synchronous, spoken conversation, but my reply was contesting that "Understudy gives you is a one-to-one relationship with another person who cares" in contrast to IRC. IRC can do exactly that, so what sells Understudy is certainly something different.
But your way is the way I can recommend.
Still, I give them the benefit of the doubt that their software may be helpful. I'm not going to get an iPad for it though.
It seems to that the term covers the hardware associated with iOS and doesn't imply anything one way or another about the company which manufactures it.
It is not as if there is just one "iPhone" and one "iPod" and one "iPad". There are diverse models of each and little point in being pedantic over all the retinas and 2' and 3's and 4's and GS's and plain old S's and mini's and nano's when the important point is that one cluster of them is required to use the product.
Yes. I used DrRacket with Neil Van Dyke's SICP package http://www.neilvandyke.org/racket-sicp/ , and that's what we recommend.
> What about MIT Scheme in Emacs?
It seemed more complicated to get running, but one of our beta testers is doing it that way, and he's happy with it.
There is a reason why note takers, artists and others are pursuing options for tablets and PC's that have digitizer technology baked in. Look at Crabfu, Gabe of penny arcade and the hundreds of iPad vs. Galaxy Note vs Surface Pro youtube videos. The Surface Pro is a very compelling device if you strip away the emotional baggage related to MSFT.
We didn't know if the tech would work, but we have enough beta testers at this point that I'm pretty sure that it does.
Here's a video of a couple people talking some SICP.
I think the idea could be useful for much more than SICP, however the ability to save and actually read what you have written would be killer features.
Yup! Old sessions are basically saved as documents.
> Two, the quality of written aspect, which is central to the "communication" idea is very poor in comparison to what I can achieve on my Galaxy Note 3 with wacom digitizer.
You didn't quite state the question there. :-) If things work out, we'll definitely want to do Android too.
> I think the idea could be useful for much more than SICP, however the ability to save and actually read what you have written would be killer features.
Hope so! We're starting with SICP and Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain[1], but it's really easy for us to add other courses. We really have something like Coursera in mind.
[1] Note: For the drawing book, you're not doing the drawing exercises _in_ the app, you're doing them on paper and then talking them over. https://www.dropbox.com/s/bkjrbclpda8fg5y/Drawing%20Final.pn...
I can see the reasoning behind this product though, the iPad has a huge base of customers, and there aren't enough Surface Pro users out there.
This is a false analogy. Skype isn't limited to idle chatting and you can also attach PDFs or images into a skype chat. And you can also screen share on Skype so any paint program would double as a whiteboard.
I suspect the use case for Understudy is much better served with Understudy than Skype, but the way the comparison is presented on the site doesn't really help, and may be interpreted as completely disingenuous.
Charging for human interaction seems like a losing proposition... What's to stop a competitor from coming along, doing the same thing, but removing the cost?
And what does the cost represent? Server drain? use of the drawing platform? there's gotta be a better business model out there... maybe you can integrate with amazon and make this a more general read-with-friends kind of thing and sell the reading pattern data (that seems like it would be valuable to companies like amazon or barnes & noble)...?
It makes it very natural to gesture and discuss visually.
Understudy works in proportion to how good of a connection it fosters. You really want the tool to vanish, and to forget that you're not really in the same room. For non-work stuff, like talking to my parents, the phone does decently at that for me, but for trying to collaborate videochat is not very effective, in my experience.
Understudy's whiteboard/videochat does do it for me.
(As far as Android vs iPad – well, have to start somewhere! Also, I worked at Apple for 7 years, so it's definitely the environment where I'm quickest.)
Well, I'd say the central theme is human connection, and then the question is what you need to make that work.
All I can say is that the iPad's screen seems to be over the hump for this! We have beta testers, and they honestly seem to be doing great. You can see a few tweets they've made at https://twitter.com/understudyapp . You might also be interested in this video of it in use - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrdjKvka558 . If you look at it _statically_, it looks bad, but when you see it in motion, you see that it's effectively gesture.
You're trying to visually communicate and gesture, not create an artifact to refer back to. My handwriting on real physical whiteboards is terrible, but they still work.
It would be interesting to try on an MS Surface. To literally answer your question, (1) there are a lot more iPads out there than Surfaces, (2) I worked at Apple for 7.5 years, on the Cocoa Frameworks for most of it, and I'm very productive in this environment.
ADDITION: After all, this is what Khan of Khan Academy does (he uses a wacom though, but then it's a end user decision).
If you enroll in SICP, we find you someone to work with.
(You can always just call someone you already know, though.)
Are you planning to develop an android version anytime soon?
Would love to do Android, though.