SICP 2.1.1&2&3

This week: Data Abstraction!

98: "In general, there are many ways to formulate a process as a procedure. Experienced programmers know how to choose procedural formulations that are particularly perspicuous, and where useful elements of the process are exposed as separate entities that can be reused in other applications." -- is there a way to automate this? -- can we "project" into these formulations from basic operations? -- does tacit concatenative programming help here?

99.61: Leo's "language of maths"

did anyone try newton's method on a non-converging function?

114: "We are using here a powerful strategy of synthesis: wishful thinking."

123.5: two types of formulations -- good idea for a talk!

125: message passing? really?

weekly recap message

Salutations!

We had a record high for homework this week, and a record low for attendance: at the current rate of change by 2017 there will be 2.7 billion people committing homework, but the meetings will be entirely vacant.

We covered sections 1.3.4 and most of 2.1 -- good conversation about data abstractions (both abstract models and algebraic specifications), message passing, projective editing and lenses over tacit concatenative programming, and wishful thinking as a synthesis strategy. Much fun was had by all.

For next week we're going to slow down and take our time with 2.1.4. It's an extended exercise on interval arithmetic, and some of the questions are apparently quite difficult (the last one comes with a warning). Since the reading will be a little light this would be a great time for some lightening talks, so if you spot something interesting in the text do some research and tell us about it!

See you next Friday. Have a great weekend!

Nov 1