sicp

[Anonymous No.11232771]

WHY THE FUCK IS SICP SO HARD. Im struggling with even the first chapter. Its so hard to come up with solutions to the exercises WHAT THE FUCK AM I A BRAINLET?
I study sicp daily with doing almost all the exercises and listening to the lectures as well. BUT IT IS SO FUCKING HARD and i will get stuck for almost an hour on some questions what the fuck. WHY IS IT SO HARD AND AM I GONNA MAKE IT?

[Anonymous No.11232777]

>>11232771
based oldfags, you appear to be unworthy of their guidance though anon. consider following step 2 religiously, this is what I do when I need to restructure my brain to be less nigger

[Anonymous No.11232776]

>>11232771
I'm a first time programmer here and I want to learn more about comsci and thus I read sicp. Its so hard I want to cry and then kill myself.

[Anonymous No.11232780]

>he fell for the sicp meme

[Anonymous No.11233002]

>>11232771
>excessive profanity
cringe, and immaturepilled

[Anonymous No.11233024]

>>11233002
You're fucking wrong.
https://www.sciencealert.com/swearing-is-a-sign-of-more-intelligence-not-less-say-scientists

[Anonymous No.11233041]

What are the requirements for reading sicp? Should I know a programming language already?

[Anonymous No.11233073]

>>11233041
main requirement: high iq and diligence
Honestly you wont need to know any programming language, they teach you everything from the start. You just have to work really hard at it and do the exercises. I recommend watching the lecture also as it will clarify on concepts. I started sicp without much knowledge of programming

[Anonymous No.11233110]

>>11232771
Just read the How to Design Programs.
Its by the same people and in modern style.

[Anonymous No.11233576]

>can't even into finding square roots without calculator

b-bros...

[Anonymous No.11233654]

Are you supposed to read programming books like this in front of a computer and input the code as you read? I find that kind of distracting.

[Anonymous No.11234588]

>>11233576
it's more like
>can't even into coding a miller-rabin test for primes from scratch after hearing what it is for the first time.
b-bros...

[Anonymous No.11235945]

You are a faggot and will never be good at anything. t. putnam fellow, dont even study math or physics at uni

[Anonymous No.11236123]

I find that it is more difficult for anyone that isn't interested in computers to find anything that is computer related to be interesting enough to learn

OP my real advice is to have some real purpose for learning how to program, and going through SICP instead of some other entry level material in another language. No, I strongly disagree with making video games or impressing nerds on /g/ as being motivating or interesting enough. You have to want to make something, and be at a place where you're thinking "I need and want to do this, and I have a computer, how can I make my computer do this thing in the best way it can?" That's when you're naturally googling every question, every forum, every professor nearby in colleges etc

And I agree with
>>11232777
This is /sci/ and writing notes is scientifically sound, i don't care what some idiot freshman is doing with their phones, there are no studies behind that, there are studies behind writing notes down physically on some medium.

[Anonymous No.11236211]

>>11232771
>WHY THE FUCK IS SICP SO HARD
it isnt: u r dumb

[Anonymous No.11236641]

redpill me on sicp

[Anonymous No.11236650]

>>11236123
brainlet

[Anonymous No.11236669]

>>11232771
hi, i have a bsc and an msc in comp sci, and several industry certs

I never read SICP. In fact, I haven't read a single book on comp sci, or programming in my life.

[Anonymous No.11236674]

>>11236669
I'm gonna change this. I just found SICP on google and I'm gonna read it. looks pretty short
https://web.mit.edu/alexmv/6.037/sicp.pdf

[Anonymous No.11236694]

>>11236674
>>11236669
>>11232771

ok OP I'm on page 100 and I think I know a little bit of lisp now. what do you struggle with?

[Anonymous No.11236701]

>>11236694
kek

[Anonymous No.11236711]

>>11236701
i'm serious, ask away while I'm still here

[Anonymous No.11236756]

>>11236701
no? all right, I'm going to bed.

[sicp op No.11236823]

>>11236694
Hey hi OP here.
It's not that I don't understand the concepts, I can read the book and watch the lectures and understand what they are talking about. It's just that the exercises, for example
>>11234588
is quite impossible for me to come up with a solution? I don't understand how people can do that, or come up with a log(n) generation of fibonacci from applying transformations, or other weird stuff like that.
It's like the exercises are on a whole different level, and they force you to think for like 1h to get the solution. Sometimes the exercises are so hard I dont even understand the solutions to some of those. It takes so much effort to develop an idea/approach of solving the problem, then translating that into perfectly executable code with no errors, and then I have to debug the code for logical errors and so on.
The exercises are pretty tough, and I skip those that I could never be able to do even aft 2hs of thinking with no progress, (the miller-rabin one). Otherwise, i complete about 80% of exercises and i make an honest attempt at every single one of them.
It's not that the concepts are hard, its the exercises.
Since i read ahead by abit (im still at chapter 1.3), here are some things I dont understand. What is message passing, dynamic dispatch, tagging(section 2.5)? I dont understand the environment model they are talking about in chapter 3 as well. Thanks for the help bro

[Anonymous No.11236833]

>>11232771
Because it's the big boy book, if you aren't ready for it then you aren't ready to take the next step and become a true wizard.

[Anonymous No.11236848]

>>11236823
Keep in mind its written for MIT students, they have a mathematicsl education that is somewhere in the top 0.X percentile. You will have to learn a shittin of math to be able to solve every exercise.
If you are only in for the compsci, consider what the other anon wrote and read "how to design programs" or whatever its name was instead. Contains similar ideas, but focuses on the compsci

[Anonymous No.11236854]

>>11236823
>and they force you to think for like 1h to get the solution
kek this is just stem... usually the solution is directly accessible in the lecture notes.
You seem kinda new due to the panic, but don’t worry, noone expects you to come up with that stuff yourself. What you are taught is some ingenious steps throughout history that get compactified over the years. If you actually follow through and try to do your exercises from scratch, you will benefit greatly, but it takes time.
My MO is to just to try to get to it from the basics, get as far as I can and at some point run out of time, find the chapter in the book or notes and go from there.

It is really not as hard as it seems, and once you get used to it it becomes fun in a challenging way.

[Anonymous No.11236863]

>>11232771
There are many exercises that dont require performing newtons method, focus on those, and CADADR your way to understanding recursion, trees, and functions as first class citizens

[sicp op No.11236913]

>>11232776
also to add on this is me. I am a first time programmer with not much experience so maybe sicp is hard because of this?
>>11236123
I find computers extremely fascinating, as I am very curious about how they work (this is also why i like science cuz im naturally curious even when im young). How did humans even create something that can perform billions of calculations per second? or do many fascinating things like beating humans in chess and go, image and speech recognition and so on. They can help us solve many problems and i like problem solving. I want to be able to understand how computers work, and not just reach a superficial level of understanding. I think i am motivated enough. It's just that i sometimes wonder if its humanly possible to do the exercises.
>>11236854
thx for the motivation bro I will remember all your comments when i finish the book.

[Anonymous No.11238243]

bump for masters degree anon to reply