Subject: Re: one small function From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 04:05:06 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3222302708179644@naggum.net> * Nils Goesche | Now, my question was, is this because of the /book/ or only because of | the /course/; I only argue that books that expand on ideas affect people in many strange ways. The book clearly has partial "blame" because it erects its own context without sufficient ties and references to the world around it to make it clear that it is a wonderful story, not a description of the real world. Since most people are not trained in integrating what they hear with what they know, the creation of a context _outside_ of their normal frame of reference is _dangerous_. Bridging between the context of a book/idea and the real world is very necessary. The course and the professor would both have to be _exceptional_ to bridge the context of SICP with the real world of programming computers. (I would argue that the same is true for K&R's C book, because it also creates a very simple world/context that simply is not real and which has deluded C programmers that they live in the "virtual world" that C is good at programming in.) | If this is the case in such courses, I think it is really not justified | to blame the book if something bad comes out of them (of course I don't | know how such courses look like at American universities, sorry about | that). When _would_ it be justified to blame the book? | I know what you mean, and you are right. But don't forget that there are | always a few, very few, among these idiots who are only `sleeping' and | might, at some time, `awake'; much of the teaching effort is all about | making those `sleepers' awake. That was very poetic and beautifully said. /// -- In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none. In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.