[plt-scheme] Re: [plt-edu] Leads on Liberal Arts Education and Programming

Yes, of course, I read and worked through SICP. However, I was  21 or 22. :-)

>From your responses I gather that there is not much published on this
topic. That is quite a pity, because it is a mighty powerful idea.

Cheers,

Marco

On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 9:43 PM, Shriram Krishnamurthi <sk at cs.brown.edu> wrote:
> I was fortunate to, at 18, read one of the most inspiring works ever
> written.  It begins:
>
>  Educators, generals, dieticians, psychologists, and parents
>  program. Armies, students, and some societies are programmed. An
>  assault on large problems employs a succession of programs, most of
>  which spring into existence en route. These programs are rife with
>  issues that appear to be particular to the problem at hand. To
>  appreciate programming as an intellectual activity in its own right
>  you must turn to computer programming; you must read and write
>  computer programs -- many of them. It doesn't matter much what the
>  programs are about or what applications they serve. What does matter
>  is how well they perform and how smoothly they fit with other
>  programs in the creation of still greater programs. The programmer
>  must seek both perfection of part and adequacy of collection.
>
> This convinced me that computer programming must lie at the heart of a
> liberal arts education.  This vision was one Matthias and I (and the
> rest of us) share deeply.  I believe that had computing existed in
> medieval times, programming would be part of the quadrivium.  Indeed,
> one can view much of the trivium and quadrivium as grasping towards
> the idea computing.
>
> Send that to your liberal arts buddies.  They like Latin words.
>
> -----
>
> Can you guess the source to the quote above?
>
> To avoid giving it away, here's the URL as a tinyurl:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/3h7xgl
>
> Shriram
>