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460 points pieterr | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.479s | source
1. jnordwick ◴[] No.42159874[source]
I took cs61a at Berkeley as my very first computer science class I couldn't program I never tried to so scheme was my first language.

My ta told me that everybody should take the class twice when you first come in and when you're graduating.

When you first take it especially if you know other languages like C at the time you don't get the full depth of the problems you're given a great introduction and you think you understand everything but you don't realize the depth of complexity. Message passing the metacircular evaluator, continuations as the basis of all flow control, etc

You think they are neat tricks that you understand the curriculum because you can do the homework you don't understand how those neat tricks are really the basis of everything else you'll do.

When you're graduating you've had time to go through all your classes you realize just how foundation was principles are and you get so much more out of the book.

Well I didn't take the class a second time I need help grade and TA for a couple semesters.

I work as a quant developer and in trading now and even though my field has nothing to do with that I still think it's the basis of me as a developer.

replies(1): >>42159975 #
2. golly_ned ◴[] No.42159975[source]
My same experience. For much of the rest of the cs curriculum I felt like we had already to some extent covered the main ideas in 61a with sicp.