namin

I once took the MIT class on which this book is based: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/gjs/6946/index.html

If anyone's interested, my problem sets solutions are here: http://www.cag.csail.mit.edu/~namin/mechanics/

The class was definitely out of my comfort zone in terms of the physics, but I loved the scheme system that allowed us to focus on the concepts, and leave the grunge to the computer. It's liberating to have an unambiguous notation, but it doesn't replace intuition.

Some books I've read this summer, which I can recommend:

- The Facebook Effect -- well-written insider's account of the history of Facebook and its ambitions. http://www.amazon.com/Facebook-Effect-Inside-Company-Connect...

- The Quantum Enigma -- an accessible digest of quantum mechanics and its philosophical consequences. http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Enigma-Physics-Encounters-Cons...

- Flesh & Machines -- a lightweight history of robotics and some wacky speculations by MIT's Rodney Brooks. http://www.amazon.com/Flesh-Machines-Robots-Will-Change/dp/0...

- The Language of Life: DNA and the Revolution of Personalized Medecine -- a well-backed account of what is or will be possible in medicine thanks to a better understanding of the genome and increase use of DNA sequencing for prevention, diagnostic, and treatment. http://www.amazon.com/Language-Life-Revolution-Personalized-...

- ... by David Sedaris -- Funny short stories. Perhaps The Santaland Diaries for something light but really amusing, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames for something darker and more well-known. Also, if you like short stories, I heartily recommend Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules, a varied collection of short stories selected by Sedaris. http://www.amazon.com/David-Sedaris/e/B000AQ3YUW/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0349119759 http://www.amazon.com/When-You-Are-Engulfed-Flames/dp/031615... http://www.amazon.com/Children-Playing-Before-Statue-Hercule...

- Dreams of My Father -- Barack Obama writes candidly and beautifully about his childhood and early adulthood; it's not a political book, and it's worth reading for the writing alone. http://www.amazon.com/Dreams-My-Father-Story-Inheritance/dp/...

- Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty: a chatty history of mathematics, and its perception. http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Loss-Certainty-Galaxy-Book...

Thanks for sharing. I am trying the Kindle sample, now.

Cool, the Jeanna Matthews' book also looks pretty hands-on. I'll check it out (yay! I found it in my country's library network :-).

Otherwise, I know quite a few books that have good and interesting code (say, Norvig's PAIP, but a good list can be found in answer to this SO question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/282470/which-books-have-r...). But these books are more passive by nature. You just read and understand the code. While TECS is really all about the projects (there is not much point to the book otherwise).

I also had a good experience with Building Problem Solvers, but I think it's because I used with a particular idea in mind (applying the truth-maintenance systems of the book to debugging metabolic networks; see biohacker.googlecode.com). So I also took a very hands-on approach: not only understanding the code, but running it, fixing it, extending it, etc.

Yes, I highly recommend this book. I have a bachelor and master in Computer Science. I worked through this book after finishing my bachelor. I would complete a project a week or so, by just spending a few hours on it in the weekend. The supporting software is really top-notch. Each project comes with extensive tests, and you can be pretty confident in your work if it passes them all. So it's ideal for self-study.

This book is really fun, and it's a great way to step back from your CS education, and get a perspective on all the abstractions upon which software is built.

You'll learn about combinatorial & sequential logic, ALU & memory chips, CPU & von Neumann architecture, machine & assembly language, assemblers, virtual machines, parsing and code generation. The hardware part is built using a freely provided Hardware Simulator and the software part can be tackled in any programming language(s) you choose. You can get started right now by going to the book's website, http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/plan.html, which has some sample chapters and all the tools (like the Hardware Simulator) you'll need to complete these wonderful projects. Each project comes with extensive test cases, giving you immediate feedback on your progress.

So, yes. This is a really enjoyable hands-on book. I wish there were more like it!

Great quote. Made me curious about the author.

When a power law applies, the majority is below average because of the long tail.

Vehicles by Valentino Braitenberg -- a study of theoretical robots whose behavior is interpreted as more and more biologically plausible.

The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris -- a zoological study of homo sapiens. A classic nicely supplemented by Our Inner Ape by Frans der Waal.

The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Green -- vulgarizes relativity and quantum theories and touches upon string theory, emphasizing the consequences of those theories on the properties of space and time.

True :) The only thing I would miss in Emacs is a visual debugger. I used to write Scheme in a "code carefully so it works the first time around" mode. It worked out because I worked on small systems and Scheme has extremely clear semantics. But imagine having to dive into a framework-based project, big enough that you can't understand it all at once by reading the code. Then, I find that using a debugger and stepping through the code is a really good way to get a grasp of the system. Perhaps, slime provides a good debugging interface -- I just got hooked into visual debuggers before I could find out.