Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Don wrote: Do you think it might be bug 1439? (note that the test case probably doesn't work any more, since Walter started hashing ultra-long mangled names, but the point remains that there's a (narrow) range of symbol lengths which will kill OPTLINK). Or yet another instance of bug 424? Or is likely to be something else? (IE, is your code template-heavy?) I can't make bug 2817 crash, and it's the only other plausible optlink segfault in bugzilla. I don't think it's 1439. The crash actually only shows up when I use -g or -gc when I'm compiling. If I leave that off, it's fine. It's when I try to use tango.math.random.Random that it starts crashing. I can use one method from that module, it's fine. If I try to use more than one, it blows up. Note that it's quantity, not a specific symbol. Plus, if I compile the module with just a dummy main method, it's fine. It MIGHT be 424. I'm getting the crash at EIP=004244FB. I'm not getting a fixups error message, if that's part of the symptoms, though. My code isn't template-heavy (at least, not by my standards), but the Random module does appear to be. I'm toying with a little OMF dumper program at the moment. I suppose that's the easiest way to see if I'm hitting the fixup limit... Incidentally, if Walter or yourself would like the object files causing the crash, I can provide those (probably via private email). I just can't upload it generally since it's a private project. -- Daniel
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Anders F Björklund wrote: ... So, would there be any such libraries available for D2/Phobos ? Or maybe that can't be until the spec (or the book) is out... --anders GtkD works with D2
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
On Sun, 17 May 2009 19:52:50 +1000, Daniel Keep daniel.keep.li...@gmail.com wrote: Don wrote: Do you think it might be bug 1439? (note that the test case probably doesn't work any more, since Walter started hashing ultra-long mangled names, but the point remains that there's a (narrow) range of symbol lengths which will kill OPTLINK). Or yet another instance of bug 424? Or is likely to be something else? (IE, is your code template-heavy?) I can't make bug 2817 crash, and it's the only other plausible optlink segfault in bugzilla. I don't think it's 1439. The crash actually only shows up when I use -g or -gc when I'm compiling. If I leave that off, it's fine. It's when I try to use tango.math.random.Random that it starts crashing. I can use one method from that module, it's fine. If I try to use more than one, it blows up. Note that it's quantity, not a specific symbol. Plus, if I compile the module with just a dummy main method, it's fine. It MIGHT be 424. I'm getting the crash at EIP=004244FB. I'm not getting a fixups error message, if that's part of the symptoms, though. My code isn't template-heavy (at least, not by my standards), but the Random module does appear to be. I'm toying with a little OMF dumper program at the moment. I suppose that's the easiest way to see if I'm hitting the fixup limit... Incidentally, if Walter or yourself would like the object files causing the crash, I can provide those (probably via private email). I just can't upload it generally since it's a private project. -- Daniel An object file was provided with this report http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=2436. But it was deemed too complex. This bug also shows up when debug-building QtD. FWIW, QtD uses lots of long identifiers but few templates.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Daniel Keep wrote: Don wrote: Do you think it might be bug 1439? (note that the test case probably doesn't work any more, since Walter started hashing ultra-long mangled names, but the point remains that there's a (narrow) range of symbol lengths which will kill OPTLINK). Or yet another instance of bug 424? Or is likely to be something else? (IE, is your code template-heavy?) I can't make bug 2817 crash, and it's the only other plausible optlink segfault in bugzilla. I don't think it's 1439. The crash actually only shows up when I use -g or -gc when I'm compiling. If I leave that off, it's fine. It's when I try to use tango.math.random.Random that it starts crashing. I can use one method from that module, it's fine. If I try to use more than one, it blows up. Note that it's quantity, not a specific symbol. Plus, if I compile the module with just a dummy main method, it's fine. It MIGHT be 424. I'm getting the crash at EIP=004244FB. I'm not getting a fixups error message, if that's part of the symptoms, though. My code isn't template-heavy (at least, not by my standards), but the Random module does appear to be. I'm toying with a little OMF dumper program at the moment. I suppose that's the easiest way to see if I'm hitting the fixup limit... You could try objconv from www.agner.org. Might work. Incidentally, if Walter or yourself would like the object files causing the crash, I can provide those (probably via private email). I just can't upload it generally since it's a private project. -- Daniel
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 7:40 PM, Georg Wrede georg.wr...@iki.fi wrote: Bill Baxter wrote: Incidentally, here, or in D.learn, somebody was asking for symbolic derivation with D templates. I think one of the excercises in SICP was to write a lisp snippet that did just that. You're probably thinking of my message about automatic differentiation. Automatic differentiation is not the same as symbolic differentiation. Symbolic differentiation is not really very useful in practice since expressions tend to balloon out into huge messes. It also only works on things that are differentiable functions. Automatic differentiation, on the other hand, works on code rather than on mathematical functions. You can run AD on loops and other things that symbolic differentiation just doesn't know how to handle, and all of this can be done in O(N) where N is the complexity of the forward expression. I posted a bunch of links in that other thread that explain the difference in more detail if you'd like to know more. --bb
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Daniel Keep daniel.keep.li...@gmail.com wrote in message news:guomo9$1kd...@digitalmars.com... I'm toying with a little OMF dumper program at the moment. I suppose that's the easiest way to see if I'm hitting the fixup limit... Debug builds of DMD print out a number of fixups message at the end. Maybe that would help? Although I don't know if it does that before or after linking.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Bill Baxter wrote: On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 7:40 PM, Georg Wrede georg.wr...@iki.fi wrote: Bill Baxter wrote: Incidentally, here, or in D.learn, somebody was asking for symbolic derivation with D templates. I think one of the excercises in SICP was to write a lisp snippet that did just that. You're probably thinking of my message about automatic differentiation. Automatic differentiation is not the same as symbolic differentiation. Symbolic differentiation is not really very useful in practice since expressions tend to balloon out into huge messes. It also only works on things that are differentiable functions. Automatic differentiation, on the other hand, works on code rather than on mathematical functions. You can run AD on loops and other things that symbolic differentiation just doesn't know how to handle, and all of this can be done in O(N) where N is the complexity of the forward expression. I posted a bunch of links in that other thread that explain the difference in more detail if you'd like to know more. Ah, thanks!
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: Will there be any GUI sections in D2 ? (or is that why they call it a textbook) If you're asking whether TDPL will contain discussions on GUIs, it won't. The hope is that it will teach one D well enough to write programs effectively using any library, GUI or otherwise. I was just wondering whether it would cover any such libraries, but I understand that it won't. Thanks for answering, though. So, would there be any such libraries available for D2/Phobos ? Or maybe that can't be until the spec (or the book) is out... --anders
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
grauzone wrote: Still, I doubt it's a good idea to lead beginners into the buggier areas of the D language/compiler. Or do I really over exaggerate these problems? D2 is not for beginners.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Don wrote: grauzone wrote: Incidentally, here, or in D.learn, somebody was asking for symbolic derivation with D templates. I think one of the excercises in SICP was to write a lisp snippet that did just that. Awesome stuff, through and through. An awesome way to hit compiler bugs, huh? Well sorry, but it's really like that: programming with D is awesome, until you hit problems like ICEs. I agree that it's a problem, which is why the latest compiler release got rid of 40% of the remaining segfault and ICE bugs (including the three most commonly encountered). You should find a significant improvement now. I have patches for many of the remaining bugs. Unfortunately there are 5 ICE bugs in bugzilla with no test cases, which means they can't be fixed. Your work is astounding, amazing, and heartening. Thank you.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Christopher Wright wrote: Don wrote: grauzone wrote: Incidentally, here, or in D.learn, somebody was asking for symbolic derivation with D templates. I think one of the excercises in SICP was to write a lisp snippet that did just that. Awesome stuff, through and through. An awesome way to hit compiler bugs, huh? Well sorry, but it's really like that: programming with D is awesome, until you hit problems like ICEs. I agree that it's a problem, which is why the latest compiler release got rid of 40% of the remaining segfault and ICE bugs (including the three most commonly encountered). You should find a significant improvement now. I have patches for many of the remaining bugs. Unfortunately there are 5 ICE bugs in bugzilla with no test cases, which means they can't be fixed. Your work is astounding, amazing, and heartening. Thank you. Thanks! It's a fit of rage, actually. I hit one compiler segfault too many, and turned violent. After a couple more, I'll probably be calmed down enough to return to library development. g BTW, only about half the bugs fixed in the last release were from me (not all my patches were correct).
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? I love exercises. They're great for people who are trying to learn the language, and a great help to those of us who help them learn (not only teachers, I'm a student myself, and spend a lot of time reviewing other students' code to iron out their errors and teach them how things work). Also, if the exercises have solutions, I can challenge myself to make the solution faster, shorter, neater, or whatever. -- Simen.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Don wrote: grauzone wrote: Incidentally, here, or in D.learn, somebody was asking for symbolic derivation with D templates. I think one of the excercises in SICP was to write a lisp snippet that did just that. Awesome stuff, through and through. An awesome way to hit compiler bugs, huh? Well sorry, but it's really like that: programming with D is awesome, until you hit problems like ICEs. I agree that it's a problem, which is why the latest compiler release got rid of 40% of the remaining segfault and ICE bugs (including the three most commonly encountered). You should find a significant improvement now. That's really awesome, by the way. I have patches for many of the remaining bugs. Unfortunately there are 5 ICE bugs in bugzilla with no test cases, which means they can't be fixed. Better than having a crash with OPTLINK with no error message nor indication of what the problem is, where the only reproducible test case is 2MB worth of object files and which has already cost you four days of trying fruitlessly to work around it, still without a solution. And the code works flawlessly under Linux, but all the users have Windows. ... I hate OPTLINK. *sobs* -- Daniel
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Don wrote: Christopher Wright wrote: Your work is astounding, amazing, and heartening. Thank you. Thanks! Yup, in case I haven't said so before, I agree with Christopher! It's a fit of rage, actually. I hit one compiler segfault too many, and turned violent. Hey, you're human. After a couple more, I'll probably be calmed down enough to return to library development. g Take your time. BTW, only about half the bugs fixed in the last release were from me And modest! That's not the norm. (not all my patches were correct). Hell, you're mortal! But your contributions aren't. :-)
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Daniel Keep wrote: Better than having a crash with OPTLINK with no error message nor indication of what the problem is, where the only reproducible test case is 2MB worth of object files and which has already cost you four days of trying fruitlessly to work around it, still without a solution. And the code works flawlessly under Linux, but all the users have Windows. ... I hate OPTLINK. *sobs* -- Daniel Okay, the next project will be to get Don into a raging fit over OPTLINK :)
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Simen Kjaeraas wrote: Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? I love exercises. They're great for people who are trying to learn the language, and a great help to those of us who help them learn (not only teachers, I'm a student myself, and spend a lot of time reviewing other students' code to iron out their errors and teach them how things work). Also, if the exercises have solutions, I can challenge myself to make the solution faster, shorter, neater, or whatever. Ah, forgot about that. A book author trying to write the theoretically best solution for an excercise is wasting his own time, won't be judged by them being sub-Perfect, and frustrates the reader who really happens to need the book. The solutions have to be good-enough. Not more. But ideally, the problem description will guide the reader towards trying something, the result of which should tell him if he's understood the crux of the chapter.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Daniel Keep wrote: Don wrote: grauzone wrote: Incidentally, here, or in D.learn, somebody was asking for symbolic derivation with D templates. I think one of the excercises in SICP was to write a lisp snippet that did just that. Awesome stuff, through and through. An awesome way to hit compiler bugs, huh? Well sorry, but it's really like that: programming with D is awesome, until you hit problems like ICEs. I agree that it's a problem, which is why the latest compiler release got rid of 40% of the remaining segfault and ICE bugs (including the three most commonly encountered). You should find a significant improvement now. That's really awesome, by the way. I have patches for many of the remaining bugs. Unfortunately there are 5 ICE bugs in bugzilla with no test cases, which means they can't be fixed. Better than having a crash with OPTLINK with no error message nor indication of what the problem is, where the only reproducible test case is 2MB worth of object files and which has already cost you four days of trying fruitlessly to work around it, still without a solution. And the code works flawlessly under Linux, but all the users have Windows. ... I hate OPTLINK. *sobs* -- Daniel Ouch. Do you think it might be bug 1439? (note that the test case probably doesn't work any more, since Walter started hashing ultra-long mangled names, but the point remains that there's a (narrow) range of symbol lengths which will kill OPTLINK). Or yet another instance of bug 424? Or is likely to be something else? (IE, is your code template-heavy?) I can't make bug 2817 crash, and it's the only other plausible optlink segfault in bugzilla.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Sean Kelly wrote: I never bother to solve the exercises either, but then I've read most tech books on my own time. I think if you're hoping this might be used in an academic setting at some point (and I have no idea what the requirements are for that) then it would be good to have exercises. By the way, does TCPL have them? I'm pretty sure TC++PL doesn't. That's a good point, it will be helpful for courses. (but not a requirement) TC++PL does have exercises - at least the 3rd edition does, although they are not so prominent. I like to use exercises as review questions or summary, looking at them helps to get a feel for how much you've understood. Also, fun or really good exercises I will take, like the ones in SICP.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Brad Roberts wrote: BCS wrote: Hello Nick, (and double the price (or more) from what would typically be reasonable) I have been told (without supporting evidence) that the price of text books is so high because about 10 times as many are printed as sold. This is because they don't have time between when they know what they need and when they need it, to print what they need. The other 90% of the books you end up paying for get pulped. (That and the fact most profs never worry about what a book costs when they spend your money) The cost of printing, shipping, etc.. on a per-book basis is actually very very low. In the neighborhood of a few dollars. No where near the around $100 that a lot of textbooks sell for. One of the reasons they cost so much is that many of them are rev'ed every couple years, meaning that they have to make whatever profit they want to make _fast_. They're rev'ed so fast at least in part to kill off the used market. There's also an awful lot of effort that goes into producing them. Authors, Editors, fact checking, copy setting, etc. Anyway, it's an ugly cycle that's bound to implode eventually. Later, Brad Another contributing factor is that experts typically not want to write textbooks (boring), so they get paid very well to do it.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Hello Nick, BCS n...@anon.com wrote in message news:a6268ff5d238cba2e80afc1...@news.digitalmars.com... Hello Nick, (and double the price (or more) from what would typically be reasonable) I have been told (without supporting evidence) that the price of text books is so high because about 10 times as many are printed as sold. This is because they don't have time between when they know what they need and when they need it, to print what they need. The other 90% of the books you end up paying for get pulped. I find that difficult (though not impossible) to believe. Most of the academic texts out there are just new editions that have barely anything changed, and not much content that really needs to be particularly timely either I'm referring to it going the other way, that the printing houses can't print and ship enough books between the time they known how many of what books they need and the start of classes to fill all the orders they get. So they have to have already printed and stocked everything before the orders come in. (Because of that, BTW, I'm convinced the updates are primarily done to curb the second-hand market. I've had plenty of profs require the latest edition when the last few editions turned out to be nearly identical). And even those updates don't happen every single school year. The same edition is usually still the newest for at least a couple years in a row, usually more. If they're ending up with so much extra stock, why not just sell that stock in the following years instead of pulping and printing new? It's not the ones that sell that they pulp, it the flops that no one would buy. Given than many (most?) books sold are sure things, that paints a very sad picture regarding the failure rate of new textbooks. If my numbers are correct, then each year (or three) 9 times as many new text book offerings flop as the number of books that sell, new and old. Or, if they really are ending up with 90% extra on such a regular basis, mabb it's time to re-evaluate how many they choose to print? It just doesn't seem to add up. But then again, nether do most things regarding academia. I'm probably repeating my self but, it's not that 90% of each title doesn't sell, it 90% of the titles offered don't sell and the rest sell out. Now if someone could find a better way to guess what new offerings would be flops
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Hello Sean, Nick Sabalausky wrote: Cons: I've never been much of a fan of them. Rarely look at them, and never do them. But more than that, I find opening a book and seeing of bunch of exercises and end of chapter quizzes rather off-putting. I have a few books I bought largely for reference material where stuff was omitted and left as an exercise to the reader (I'm looking at you, Sedgewick!) Regardless of how easy some of these exercises may be for me to solve, it isn't something I'm generally in the mood for when I pick up the book at work to check something. However, this isn't a book about algorithms so perhaps this isn't an issue really. If the book has solutions, then they can server double duty as code examples.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Nick Sabalausky wrote: You know, you've consistently been getting me impressed with your school ;) Caltech was it? I've been to a big public state university, a small supposedly well-respected private university, and a community college (that was highly-regarded, at least for a community college). I had many major issues with all of them (of course, I had major issues with K-12 as well ;) ). But, tech schools, I've never been to one (never got in, and they tend to be expensive anyway). I wonder if these things are specific to Caltech or if they tend to be typical of tech schools? I don't know if Caltech is typical or not. I went there kind of by happenstance, and was very lucky because their style suited my personality.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: By the way. Is d2 focused? is it like a textbook or a reference book? D2 exclusively. Textbook modeled after KR. Will there be any GUI sections in D2 ? (or is that why they call it a textbook) --anders
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
BCS n...@anon.com wrote in message news:a6268ff5d5a8cba307ba676...@news.digitalmars.com... Hello Nick, Or, if they really are ending up with 90% extra on such a regular basis, mabb it's time to re-evaluate how many they choose to print? It just doesn't seem to add up. But then again, nether do most things regarding academia. I'm probably repeating my self but, it's not that 90% of each title doesn't sell, it 90% of the titles offered don't sell and the rest sell out. Now if someone could find a better way to guess what new offerings would be flops Ahh, I see what you're saying. In that case, that (and the well-being of student's backs/spines everywhere) would be good reason for school textbooks to finally move to an electronic format (but of course, that has plenty of other downsides...)
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Andrei Alexandrescu seewebsiteforem...@erdani.org wrote in message news:guitu0$op...@digitalmars.com... Sean Kelly wrote: Brad Roberts wrote: There's only one book that I can remember ever working through the exercises on.. and that's even a stretch of the term exercise: Exceptional C++. For any of you that develop c++ code and haven't read that book.. I highly recommend it. Scott Meyers is an excellent technical writer--he's one of the few authors whose books I'd pick up without ever cracking the cover. So is Herb Sutter, the author of Exceptional C++. Are you sure you cracked that one even after you bought it? Nyuk, nyuk... :o) Looks like I'm not the only one that gets those books confused :). When Exceptional C++ was mentioned, I thought it was that C++ book you wrote. I think I breifly browsed through one or two of those E* C++ books before. Was very impressed with them (and also a similar book from a different publisher geared towards game dev), but I think my biggest take-away from all of them was, Alright, that's it, screw C++. ;) Then I found D. Not that the books were difficult or anything, in fact they did a great job of making an extremely complicated language as easy as possible. But they just made it finally click in my mind just what a PITA/POS C++ had become. Shit, I'm rambling again... ;)
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. Well, you're not the average reader. :-) Reasons for including excercises o they're really needed for those who actually /study/ the stuff o KR, Stroustrup, Knuth had them!! Nobody's ever complained o when reading stuff /new/ to you, they're needed o the only way to get schools and unviersities to use the book o make them well, and it'll double the value of the book o increases sales and revenue o some learn by doing, especially the not-supertalented o no excercises is an obvious omission, attracts competitors Reasons against excercises o they take longer to write, if done well o you may need to test some of the excercises on people o done sloppily they'll reduce the value of the book o the answers need to explain stuff, not only be a listing The more people buy the book, the more money you get. And for us, the more D gets recognition inside and outside the academia, the better!! As a teacher, I'd never choose one without excercises. (Hell, then I'd have to invent them all, not just some. If that's a chore to you, it sure is a drag for the teacher!) IMO, it is *utterly* important that the book is usable in universities. The better universities pick it up, the others follow, and eventually we may have a chance of having D taught as the first computing language. (It certainly is better for that than the others, IMNSHO.) People also tend to have a mother tongue, even with computer languages. In 5..10 years, we want D to be *The* language, right? PS: write in the preface that you'd love teacher comments. You won't regret it, come time for the second edition!! You'll want to /maintain/ the head start you got, by refining the quality.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: Sean Kelly wrote: Brad Roberts wrote: There's only one book that I can remember ever working through the exercises on.. and that's even a stretch of the term exercise: Exceptional C++. For any of you that develop c++ code and haven't read that book.. I highly recommend it. Scott Meyers is an excellent technical writer--he's one of the few authors whose books I'd pick up without ever cracking the cover. So is Herb Sutter, the author of Exceptional C++. Are you sure you cracked that one even after you bought it? Nyuk, nyuk... :o) Andrei I confused Herb Sutter with Herbert Schildt, and thought you were using irony.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? Depends on the exercise. In Knuth, some of the best bits are in the exercises. But I think he was using them as a form of compression, reducing the size of the book to reasonable length g. I don't think I've bothered trying to solve the exercises in any other textbook, except in some rare cases where the exercise was so interesting that I really wanted to know what the answer was. I've never done an exercise for the sake of doing an exercise. But I'm weirder than you.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
On Thu, 14 May 2009 20:05:04 -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu seewebsiteforem...@erdani.org wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? I personally never did exercises unless they were assigned. Generally when I'm reading a text book on my own, it's to get going on a project. So I'm not interested in solving puzzles :) But examples are good to help with understanding, so as long as you put the answers in the book, I think it's a good idea. -Steve
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
On Fri, 15 May 2009 17:13:40 +0400, Steven Schveighoffer schvei...@yahoo.com wrote: On Thu, 14 May 2009 20:05:04 -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu seewebsiteforem...@erdani.org wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? I personally never did exercises unless they were assigned. Generally when I'm reading a text book on my own, it's to get going on a project. So I'm not interested in solving puzzles :) But examples are good to help with understanding, so as long as you put the answers in the book, I think it's a good idea. -Steve Well, I'd wouldn't recommend putting solutions into a book for a couple of reasons: 1) Most people would jump to answers right after reading the question, without caring to thing a little 2) Good questions deserve good answers (with explanation etc), but it takes time and books size grows significantly 3) Teachers won't be able to use these exercises to teach D in the classes because everyone can cheat by looking at answers But I do believe that answers are very useful (unless they are no-brainers). I great solution to the problem would be to provide answers on a dedicated web-site. This way you can keep them comprehensive, they won't take up any space in the book, you may even write (and update) them *after* book is shipped.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Nick Sabalausky wrote: Andrei Alexandrescu seewebsiteforem...@erdani.org wrote in message news:guitu0$op...@digitalmars.com... Sean Kelly wrote: Brad Roberts wrote: There's only one book that I can remember ever working through the exercises on.. and that's even a stretch of the term exercise: Exceptional C++. For any of you that develop c++ code and haven't read that book.. I highly recommend it. Scott Meyers is an excellent technical writer--he's one of the few authors whose books I'd pick up without ever cracking the cover. So is Herb Sutter, the author of Exceptional C++. Are you sure you cracked that one even after you bought it? Nyuk, nyuk... :o) Looks like I'm not the only one that gets those books confused :). When Exceptional C++ was mentioned, I thought it was that C++ book you wrote. Oh... oops! The Scott Meyers titles are really similar! *blush*
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: Sean Kelly wrote: Brad Roberts wrote: There's only one book that I can remember ever working through the exercises on.. and that's even a stretch of the term exercise: Exceptional C++. For any of you that develop c++ code and haven't read that book.. I highly recommend it. Scott Meyers is an excellent technical writer--he's one of the few authors whose books I'd pick up without ever cracking the cover. So is Herb Sutter, the author of Exceptional C++. Are you sure you cracked that one even after you bought it? Nyuk, nyuk... :o) Ouch! I think I actually have both Exceptional C++ and More Exceptional C++ around somewhere, though I think a lot of the same stuff can be found in his GOTW archives. And these days I'm using C at work, so... :-p
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Anders F Björklund wrote: Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: By the way. Is d2 focused? is it like a textbook or a reference book? D2 exclusively. Textbook modeled after KR. Will there be any GUI sections in D2 ? (or is that why they call it a textbook) If you're asking whether TDPL will contain discussions on GUIs, it won't. The hope is that it will teach one D well enough to write programs effectively using any library, GUI or otherwise. Andrei
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Hello Nick, Ahh, I see what you're saying. In that case, that (and the well-being of student's backs/spines everywhere) would be good reason for school textbooks to finally move to an electronic format (but of course, that has plenty of other downsides...) what I want to see (as a first step) is a printing press build to be installed at the schools. Then they just need to get a PDF and a license to print X copies: Oh we ran out of that title, but we'll have a batch hot off the press in 10 minuets.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Nick Sabalausky wrote: Andrei Alexandrescu seewebsiteforem...@erdani.org wrote in message news:guitu0$op...@digitalmars.com... Sean Kelly wrote: Brad Roberts wrote: There's only one book that I can remember ever working through the exercises on.. and that's even a stretch of the term exercise: Exceptional C++. For any of you that develop c++ code and haven't read that book.. I highly recommend it. Scott Meyers is an excellent technical writer--he's one of the few authors whose books I'd pick up without ever cracking the cover. So is Herb Sutter, the author of Exceptional C++. Are you sure you cracked that one even after you bought it? Nyuk, nyuk... :o) Looks like I'm not the only one that gets those books confused :). When Exceptional C++ was mentioned, I thought it was that C++ book you wrote. I think I breifly browsed through one or two of those E* C++ books before. Was very impressed with them (and also a similar book from a different publisher geared towards game dev), but I think my biggest take-away from all of them was, Alright, that's it, screw C++. ;) Then I found D. Not that the books were difficult or anything, in fact they did a great job of making an extremely complicated language as easy as possible. But they just made it finally click in my mind just what a PITA/POS C++ had become. Shit, I'm rambling again... ;) One reason I like Exceptional C++ is that most of the points made in it transcend the language and are just good programming tips. It also does a good job of presenting complex topics as well as basic topics. Additionally, the 'exceptional' part isn't just about using exceptions in the language. :) Later, Brad
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? Thanks, Andrei Andrei, Do you have a publisher yet? They will probably give you quite a definitive answer. They usually have quite strong ideas about the market they are aiming for. If is is to be a university text book, then Yes! I realize that doing it is a pain in the ass. You have to test every little thing to the limit, which takes forever. But if you do it you will sort out bugs in the book. Don't envy you, especially given the moving target of D2 ;=) But the best of luck. Steve
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
On Fri, 15 May 2009 22:09:17 +0400, Andrei Alexandrescu seewebsiteforem...@erdani.org wrote: Steve Teale wrote: Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? Thanks, Andrei Andrei, Do you have a publisher yet? They will probably give you quite a definitive answer. They usually have quite strong ideas about the market they are aiming for. The publisher, Addison-Wesley, is leaving such details to me. If is is to be a university text book, then Yes! I realize that doing it is a pain in the ass. You have to test every little thing to the limit, which takes forever. But if you do it you will sort out bugs in the book. Don't envy you, especially given the moving target of D2 ;=) But the best of luck. Thanks! One nice thing is I've written (in D!) a little script that extracts the code from all of my examples, compiles it, and runs it comparing the output with the expected output. The book will definitely have a number of faults, but code that doesn't work will not be one of them. It's amazing how much I need to rewrite in wake of recent improvements to D and Phobos. My initial draft of Chapter 1 used char[] for strings! I think D couldn't have claimed being much more than a step forward from C if it stayed with that approach to strings. There's still stuff that doesn't compile (Walter is working on that), and looking forward I'm so excited about the forgotten __traits(allMembers) and the reflection capabilities it begets, I can't stand myself. Andrei Will you mention __traits as a __traits keyword, or it will be renamed (or, better, the whole feature re-implemented) to something better-looking one, by the time TDPL is ready? I really hope it will be fixed in one way or another soon. We need a better compile-time introspection and I assume __traits is just a starting point. It is too hack-ish and there is definitely a room for improvement.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote: Steve Teale wrote: Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? Thanks, Andrei Andrei, Do you have a publisher yet? They will probably give you quite a definitive answer. They usually have quite strong ideas about the market they are aiming for. The publisher, Addison-Wesley, is leaving such details to me. If is is to be a university text book, then Yes! I realize that doing it is a pain in the ass. You have to test every little thing to the limit, which takes forever. But if you do it you will sort out bugs in the book. Don't envy you, especially given the moving target of D2 ;=) But the best of luck. Thanks! One nice thing is I've written (in D!) a little script that extracts the code from all of my examples, compiles it, and runs it comparing the output with the expected output. The book will definitely have a number of faults, but code that doesn't work will not be one of them. It's amazing how much I need to rewrite in wake of recent improvements to D and Phobos. My initial draft of Chapter 1 used char[] for strings! I think D couldn't have claimed being much more than a step forward from C if it stayed with that approach to strings. There's still stuff that doesn't compile (Walter is working on that), and looking forward I'm so excited about the forgotten __traits(allMembers) and the reflection capabilities it begets, I can't stand myself. Andrei Not being able to stand yourself goes with the job - there's worse to come. Addison-Wesley must have got more relaxed since I dealt with them, or possibly you are better known than I was at the time. Can I review? Even if only on an informal basis - I do speak the language from both sides of the pond, have some experience of the process, and I can be a real pain in the ass ;=) Steve
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Denis Koroskin wrote: Well, I'd wouldn't recommend putting solutions into a book for a couple of reasons: 1) Most people would jump to answers right after reading the question, without caring to thing a little 2) Good questions deserve good answers (with explanation etc), but it takes time and books size grows significantly 3) Teachers won't be able to use these exercises to teach D in the classes because everyone can cheat by looking at answers Many books have answers only to the odd numbered excercises.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Sean Kelly wrote: Nick Sabalausky wrote: Andrei Alexandrescu seewebsiteforem...@erdani.org wrote in message news:guitu0$op...@digitalmars.com... Sean Kelly wrote: Brad Roberts wrote: There's only one book that I can remember ever working through the exercises on.. and that's even a stretch of the term exercise: Exceptional C++. For any of you that develop c++ code and haven't read that book.. I highly recommend it. Scott Meyers is an excellent technical writer--he's one of the few authors whose books I'd pick up without ever cracking the cover. So is Herb Sutter, the author of Exceptional C++. Are you sure you cracked that one even after you bought it? Nyuk, nyuk... :o) Looks like I'm not the only one that gets those books confused :). When Exceptional C++ was mentioned, I thought it was that C++ book you wrote. Oh... oops! The Scott Meyers titles are really similar! *blush* Well, anyhow, reading a couple fo Scott Meyers books really kills the last inch of even trying to start coping with C++. They really make you see what a piece of manure the language is. Without even trying.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote: Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. If they're so cool, I think, they are worth adding. May be you didn't solve exercises because they were boring?
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Steve Teale wrote: Can I review? Even if only on an informal basis - I do speak the language from both sides of the pond, have some experience of the process, and I can be a real pain in the ass ;=) Steve, I've known you for what, 20+ years? and you've never been a pain the ass. I hope you can come to our (as yet theoretical) next D conference so we can heft a pint!
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
== Quote from Georg Wrede (georg.wr...@iki.fi)'s article Well, anyhow, reading a couple fo Scott Meyers books really kills the last inch of even trying to start coping with C++. They really make you see what a piece of manure the language is. Without even trying. I have a lot of issues with C++, but I find C to be positively maddening. If there were a version of D that didn't contain a GC and ran on SPARC I'd jump for joy right about now.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Brad Roberts wrote:
There's only one book that I can remember ever working through the exercises
on.. and that's even a stretch of the term exercise: Exceptional C++.
The short attention span version of Exceptional C++:
int main()
{
*(char*)0 = 0;
return 0;
}
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
BCS n...@anon.com wrote in message news:a6268ff5db58cba35a2dda2...@news.digitalmars.com... Hello Nick, Ahh, I see what you're saying. In that case, that (and the well-being of student's backs/spines everywhere) would be good reason for school textbooks to finally move to an electronic format (but of course, that has plenty of other downsides...) what I want to see (as a first step) is a printing press build to be installed at the schools. Then they just need to get a PDF and a license to print X copies: Oh we ran out of that title, but we'll have a batch hot off the press in 10 minuets. There are some schools that already either have or have access to a local print shop. I know of at least a couple schools where a few of the classes have books (usually small ones) that were written by the instructor or by the department and printed by the local/official/semi-official school print shop. What you suggest would be a great next step.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Brad Roberts bra...@puremagic.com wrote in message news:mailman.73.1242407451.13405.digitalmar...@puremagic.com... Nick Sabalausky wrote: Looks like I'm not the only one that gets those books confused :). When Exceptional C++ was mentioned, I thought it was that C++ book you wrote. I think I breifly browsed through one or two of those E* C++ books before. Was very impressed with them (and also a similar book from a different publisher geared towards game dev), but I think my biggest take-away from all of them was, Alright, that's it, screw C++. ;) Then I found D. Not that the books were difficult or anything, in fact they did a great job of making an extremely complicated language as easy as possible. But they just made it finally click in my mind just what a PITA/POS C++ had become. Shit, I'm rambling again... ;) One reason I like Exceptional C++ is that most of the points made in it transcend the language and are just good programming tips. It also does a good job of presenting complex topics as well as basic topics. Additionally, the 'exceptional' part isn't just about using exceptions in the language. :) I guess I didn't get too good of a look at that particular one then. There are number of other great books though that transcend the language and are just good programming tips. The Pragmatic Programmer, Code Craft, and Writing Solid Code. The other one I mentioned above was C++ for Game Programmers. That's one that anyone who writes videogames in C++ should read.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Walter Bright newshou...@digitalmars.com wrote in message
news:gukg9f$n1...@digitalmars.com...
Brad Roberts wrote:
There's only one book that I can remember ever working through the
exercises
on.. and that's even a stretch of the term exercise: Exceptional C++.
The short attention span version of Exceptional C++:
int main()
{
*(char*)0 = 0;
return 0;
}
I went through a phase where I was really big on making custom sound schemes
for my system. I loved the clip I had picked for program crash so much, I
wrote a program where the entire intent was to dereference null, just so I
could listen to my nifty error sound whenever I wanted.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Nick Sabalausky wrote: Sean Kelly s...@invisibleduck.org wrote in message I also don't understand why professors seem to always choose academic textbooks on the subject when I know there are infinitely better trade books available (which I generally already own). Hear hear!! There's also another phenomenon I've noticed: Classes that never use the book, *except* for heavy use of it during the first two weeks. Call me paranoid, but I can't imagine any realistic explanation for that other than trying to trick students who have learned not to buy books until they see the class *really does* require it (as opposed to the classes that merely claim to require it.) It could also be that the professor is new to teaching and wanted to try out the book, but did not end up liking it. Heck, one of the schools I went to, I know for a fact that the instructors were *required* to choose a required book for their course and have the bookstore order it. A handful of instructors would say on the first day of class Did you get the required book for this course? No? Good. Don't. And if you have, go take it back. They just required me to pick one. We won't use it, so don't get it. My university's bookstore refused to accept returns without proof that you dropped the course.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 5:05 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu seewebsiteforem...@erdani.org wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? I learned Scheme on my own using SICP and I found the exercises there to be quite valuable in verifying that I actually understood* what was going on. [*] or didn't understand, as was frequently the case. :-)
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Walter Bright wrote:
Brad Roberts wrote:
There's only one book that I can remember ever working through the
exercises
on.. and that's even a stretch of the term exercise: Exceptional C++.
The short attention span version of Exceptional C++:
int main()
{
*(char*)0 = 0;
return 0;
}
Sometimes I fear my C[++] bashing is grossly insufficient. I feel I'm
crying wolf all over town, when I should cry crocodile.
(I'm not scared of wolves. We actually have wolves around here. But in
1973 I was in Konstanz, Germany, studying the language, and somebody had
an 18 inch baby crocodile on the campus lawn, tethered to a tree. You'd
never guess what scare and panic the reptile caused. It could run as
fast as a human, and its jaws were half its length. And it sure wasn't
waiting for people to come and cuddle it.)
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Georg Wrede wrote: Bill Baxter wrote: On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 5:05 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu seewebsiteforem...@erdani.org wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? I learned Scheme on my own using SICP and I found the exercises there to be quite valuable in verifying that I actually understood* what was going on. [*] or didn't understand, as was frequently the case. :-) Yup. Same here. :-( Incidentally, here, or in D.learn, somebody was asking for symbolic derivation with D templates. I think one of the excercises in SICP was to write a lisp snippet that did just that. Awesome stuff, through and through. Speaking of which, compile-time derivation using strings and mixins would be an awesome addition to std.numeric. alias unaryFunction!(exp(x) * sin(x), x) fun; alias derive!(fun, x) dfun; Andrei
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Bill Baxter wrote: On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 5:05 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu seewebsiteforem...@erdani.org wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? I learned Scheme on my own using SICP and I found the exercises there to be quite valuable in verifying that I actually understood* what was going on. [*] or didn't understand, as was frequently the case. :-) Yup. Same here. :-( Incidentally, here, or in D.learn, somebody was asking for symbolic derivation with D templates. I think one of the excercises in SICP was to write a lisp snippet that did just that. Awesome stuff, through and through.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Incidentally, here, or in D.learn, somebody was asking for symbolic derivation with D templates. I think one of the excercises in SICP was to write a lisp snippet that did just that. Awesome stuff, through and through. An awesome way to hit compiler bugs, huh? Well sorry, but it's really like that: programming with D is awesome, until you hit problems like ICEs.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
On Thu, 14 May 2009 19:05:04 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? Thanks, Andrei I don't usually do exercises, but as others have pointed out a lot of times they end up just being stupid questions. I think there should be a few, one or two per chapter, this way they can really concentrate on the key points of the chapter. (I supposed you just shouldn't force exercises if they are not any good) I want to point out that a good index should be included, something LTTWD really missed. (Yes I know about http://downloads.dsource.org/projects/ tango/book/TangoIndex.pdf since I wrote it)
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
grauzone wrote: Incidentally, here, or in D.learn, somebody was asking for symbolic derivation with D templates. I think one of the excercises in SICP was to write a lisp snippet that did just that. Awesome stuff, through and through. An awesome way to hit compiler bugs, huh? Well sorry, but it's really like that: programming with D is awesome, until you hit problems like ICEs. I agree that it's a problem, which is why the latest compiler release got rid of 40% of the remaining segfault and ICE bugs (including the three most commonly encountered). You should find a significant improvement now. I have patches for many of the remaining bugs. Unfortunately there are 5 ICE bugs in bugzilla with no test cases, which means they can't be fixed.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Still, I doubt it's a good idea to lead beginners into the buggier areas of the D language/compiler. Or do I really over exaggerate these problems?
Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? Thanks, Andrei
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? Thanks, Andrei I rarely do exercises, but I think they may be good for learning metaprogramming. It may even be a fun to use this list for providing exercises and solutions.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Hello Andrei, A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? Thanks, Andrei Pros: someone might use it in a metaprograming class :D cons: someone might thing it's /only/ a textbook.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Sorry for my stepping in since this is about learning and I am a student who is eager to learn D throughy and completely. I highly recommand it is a must have if possible to include exercise.Students need to do tons of homework to get familar with the new features. I also recommand it is a better-to-have if possible to include data structure and algorithm implemented in the said laguage.Interpret the implementation from one laguage to another laguage is not a good idea esp. there is a big difference between the 2. If the volume and completion date is a problem,I would like to suggest separate the textbook into several part,the foundamental,the data structure algorithm,the exercise solution,so you can well plan your schedule and publish one by one with no rush. By large,I would like to use one high qulity complete reference book/textbook which including almost everything need to know to guide me on the way to programming D,esp. at present sturctured and systematic D learning source is so precious. P.S:I could not wait any longer for your book :D Best Regards, Sam
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
would typically be reasonable), and not actually give them any real information except (if we feel like it) some info that's incomplete, poorly explained, etc. I can come up with plenty of questions and problems Ah yes, if there are exercises, they should also give the solutions. In case of coding exercises, not only the source code, but with explanations. If not, it's utterly useless and should not be done. on my own. If I buy a book (or take a class), it's because I want *answers* and *information*. If I want to work through it all on my own (and, hell, sometimes I do), then I can do that without f*%^* putting down the money for a book/class in the first place. You pay for books? I just get them from the library. (By the way, how do intellectual property freaks deal with this?)
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Hello Nick, (and double the price (or more) from what would typically be reasonable) I have been told (without supporting evidence) that the price of text books is so high because about 10 times as many are printed as sold. This is because they don't have time between when they know what they need and when they need it, to print what they need. The other 90% of the books you end up paying for get pulped. (That and the fact most profs never worry about what a book costs when they spend your money)
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Hello grauzone, You pay for books? I just get them from the library. For how long? I've got 3m of text books on the shelf next to me (only one fo them not mine) and when I need one I don't want to go to the library to get it.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
grauzone n...@example.net wrote in message news:guikqi$ad...@digitalmars.com... would typically be reasonable), and not actually give them any real information except (if we feel like it) some info that's incomplete, poorly explained, etc. I can come up with plenty of questions and problems Ah yes, if there are exercises, they should also give the solutions. In case of coding exercises, not only the source code, but with explanations. If not, it's utterly useless and should not be done. Good point. on my own. If I buy a book (or take a class), it's because I want *answers* and *information*. If I want to work through it all on my own (and, hell, sometimes I do), then I can do that without f*%^* putting down the money for a book/class in the first place. You pay for books? I just get them from the library. I was afraid someone would catch that ;) Yea, I do usually just use the library (especially for videos (Ohio has awesome libraries) but also books too). I guess I was talking more about classes and books that I think I'll want to hold on to for more than a few weeks (like TDPL). (By the way, how do intellectual property freaks deal with this?) I've wondered that too. I suspect, in the case of books, they've either given up on it or never even thought about it. I mean, public libraries have been around a lng time. Certainly longer that at least the US's copyright law (or the US itself, for that matter). Hell, longer than the printing press. (Interesting question: if the printing press and intellectual property had been around before libraries, would libraries have ever happened? I suspect not.) With periodicals, I don't think they'd care. If anything I'd think it does periodicals a favor. It's not like you can usually buy back issues, and even when you can it's probably just because they're just trying to clear out back stock. Plus a lot of there revenue is ad-generated. There's magazines that literally hand out subscriptions for free to anyone who know where to look, just to boost their circulation and thus increase ad revenue. But I've heard the MPAA and RIAA haven't been too happy about their stuff being in libraries. Not that I don't care though: With music, I've learned the hard way not to buy discs I haven't listened to first (even if I've previously been happy with the artist). And with videos, I'll be damned if I'm going to buy something that tries to shove advertisements, product placement (*COUGH* Star Trek 2009 *COUGH*), and prohibited user operations down my throat. I'll go back to VHS before I buy another disc that has prohibited user operations.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
== Quote from Nick Sabalausky (a...@a.a)'s article (By the way, how do intellectual property freaks deal with this?) I've wondered that too. I suspect, in the case of books, they've either given up on it or never even thought about it. I mean, public libraries have been around a lng time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_sale_doctrine Of course, the RIAA/MPAA fascists seem to be doing everything in their power to make sure nothing like a digital equivalent to the first sale doctrine ever exists.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Hello grauzone, You pay for books? I just get them from the library. (By the way, how do intellectual property freaks deal with this?) I suspect that there are very few people who care enough about a book to buy it but only if they can't get it from a library. Either they would buy it no matter what, or they wouldn't buy it at all (at least not right now, but maybe later if they use it a lot).
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
I never bother to solve the exercises either, but then I've read most tech books on my own time. I think if you're hoping this might be used in an academic setting at some point (and I have no idea what the requirements are for that) then it would be good to have exercises. By the way, does TCPL have them? I'm pretty sure TC++PL doesn't.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
BCS wrote: Hello Nick, (and double the price (or more) from what would typically be reasonable) I have been told (without supporting evidence) that the price of text books is so high because about 10 times as many are printed as sold. This is because they don't have time between when they know what they need and when they need it, to print what they need. The other 90% of the books you end up paying for get pulped. (That and the fact most profs never worry about what a book costs when they spend your money) The cost of printing, shipping, etc.. on a per-book basis is actually very very low. In the neighborhood of a few dollars. No where near the around $100 that a lot of textbooks sell for. One of the reasons they cost so much is that many of them are rev'ed every couple years, meaning that they have to make whatever profit they want to make _fast_. They're rev'ed so fast at least in part to kill off the used market. There's also an awful lot of effort that goes into producing them. Authors, Editors, fact checking, copy setting, etc. Anyway, it's an ugly cycle that's bound to implode eventually. Later, Brad
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? Thanks, Andrei There's only one book that I can remember ever working through the exercises on.. and that's even a stretch of the term exercise: Exceptional C++. For any of you that develop c++ code and haven't read that book.. I highly recommend it. Later, Brad
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Nick Sabalausky wrote: Cons: I've never been much of a fan of them. Rarely look at them, and never do them. But more than that, I find opening a book and seeing of bunch of exercises and end of chapter quizzes rather off-putting. I have a few books I bought largely for reference material where stuff was omitted and left as an exercise to the reader (I'm looking at you, Sedgewick!) Regardless of how easy some of these exercises may be for me to solve, it isn't something I'm generally in the mood for when I pick up the book at work to check something. However, this isn't a book about algorithms so perhaps this isn't an issue really.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
BCS n...@anon.com wrote in message news:a6268ff5d238cba2e80afc1...@news.digitalmars.com... Hello Nick, (and double the price (or more) from what would typically be reasonable) I have been told (without supporting evidence) that the price of text books is so high because about 10 times as many are printed as sold. This is because they don't have time between when they know what they need and when they need it, to print what they need. The other 90% of the books you end up paying for get pulped. I find that difficult (though not impossible) to believe. Most of the academic texts out there are just new editions that have barely anything changed, and not much content that really needs to be particularly timely either (Because of that, BTW, I'm convinced the updates are primarily done to curb the second-hand market. I've had plenty of profs require the latest edition when the last few editions turned out to be nearly identical). And even those updates don't happen every single school year. The same edition is usually still the newest for at least a couple years in a row, usually more. If they're ending up with so much extra stock, why not just sell that stock in the following years instead of pulping and printing new? Or, if they really are ending up with 90% extra on such a regular basis, mabb it's time to re-evaluate how many they choose to print? It just doesn't seem to add up. But then again, nether do most things regarding academia. (That and the fact most profs never worry about what a book costs when they spend your money) Now *that* one I definitely *don't* have any difficulty believing. Hell, half of the college classes out there amount to nothing more than US$2k book recommendations. For those classes, most of the prof's teaching amounts to nothing more than saying what book to buy, and having the students read it. If the instructor doesn't care about wasting a couple thousand of the student's dollars when the only real value in the entire class is the book itself, they're certainly not going to care if the book happens to cost $50-$100 too much.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Nick Sabalausky wrote: BCS n...@anon.com wrote in message news:a6268ff5d238cba2e80afc1...@news.digitalmars.com... (That and the fact most profs never worry about what a book costs when they spend your money) Now *that* one I definitely *don't* have any difficulty believing. Hell, half of the college classes out there amount to nothing more than US$2k book recommendations. That hasn't been my experience. I've had a lot of professors who've said whether the previous (used) version of a book would work for the course, and for reading-intensive courses I've ever had professors who xeroxed massive amounts of material to hand out to spare students the expense of buying books. Another option at many universities is to go to the school library. They generally have all the course material available for students to use... they just can't leave with it. That said, the cost of textbooks is still completely ridiculous. I also don't understand why professors seem to always choose academic textbooks on the subject when I know there are infinitely better trade books available (which I generally already own).
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
On Thu, 14 May 2009 19:05:04 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Won't hurt to put those in then :-) I remember working through some of Knuth's exercises and enjoying the challenge, even though I failed to solve some of the advanced ones. I think any exercises you put in should be incidental to the book's purpose. I mean, that the book should be just as useful with or without those exercises; they would exist for the curious or adventurous. And in any case, not only should the solutions be provided, a way to /get/ to the solutions should also be shown; I can remember seeing some exercises' solution and thinking Huh? How did he get that? -- Derek Parnell Melbourne, Australia skype: derek.j.parnell
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Brad Roberts wrote: There's only one book that I can remember ever working through the exercises on.. and that's even a stretch of the term exercise: Exceptional C++. For any of you that develop c++ code and haven't read that book.. I highly recommend it. Scott Meyers is an excellent technical writer--he's one of the few authors whose books I'd pick up without ever cracking the cover. About my only complaint is that his books tend to be targeted at someone with a bit less experience than I have, so I don't get much out of his stuff these days.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
dsimcha dsim...@yahoo.com wrote in message news:guinsl$g7...@digitalmars.com... == Quote from Nick Sabalausky (a...@a.a)'s article (By the way, how do intellectual property freaks deal with this?) I've wondered that too. I suspect, in the case of books, they've either given up on it or never even thought about it. I mean, public libraries have been around a lng time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_sale_doctrine Of course, the RIAA/MPAA fascists seem to be doing everything in their power to make sure nothing like a digital equivalent to the first sale doctrine ever exists. That just made me think of something that never really occurred to me before: For a long time now (before optical discs), recordings (definitely videos, not sure about music) have been sold (ermm, excuse me, *cough* licensed *cough*) with the license restriction of not for public viewing (or something along those lines). But I'm not aware of books having a similar thing. I admit I'm purely speculating here, but I could easily imagine that restriction as being intended as a way to get around the first sale doctrine enough to prohibit library use. Oh, also, a large portion of the videogame industry also belongs in your statement above about the RIAA/MPAA trying to prevent a digital equivalent of first sale doctrine. There are a number of big-name people in the games industry that fully believe in first sale doctrine for videogames, but most of the industry has been very visibly moving towards a model (DRMed digital distribution) that would enable them to eliminate the second-hand market (despite the fact that the sales fairly clearly indicate that consumers usually prefer a physical medium). But the real scary thing is that many of these people are completely open about their, in many cases, outright contempt for the second-hand market. (Although some of them are a bit more veiled about it, like Nintendo, but in those cases their actions make their stance pretty clear anyway.)
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Brad Roberts bra...@puremagic.com wrote in message news:mailman.71.1242359810.13405.digitalmar...@puremagic.com... BCS wrote: Anyway, it's an ugly cycle that's bound to implode eventually. I wish that were true, but I'm not convinced. My experiences at three different colleges indicate there's a lot of things about college that by all means *should* have imploded long ago. The problem is that college and anything claiming to be education has become such a sacred cow in our society that pretty much any amount of bullshit is, and will continue to be, tolerated for the foreseeable future.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Nick Sabalausky wrote: That just made me think of something that never really occurred to me before: For a long time now (before optical discs), recordings (definitely videos, not sure about music) have been sold (ermm, excuse me, *cough* licensed *cough*) with the license restriction of not for public viewing (or something along those lines). But I'm not aware of books having a similar thing. I believe that if you read a book aloud to an audience it counts as a performance of the work and the copyright holder is technically supposed to be compensated for it. But this happens about as often as DJs pay the RIAA for the use of records they play (ie. basically never).
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Sean Kelly s...@invisibleduck.org wrote in message news:guipr4$jl...@digitalmars.com... Nick Sabalausky wrote: BCS n...@anon.com wrote in message news:a6268ff5d238cba2e80afc1...@news.digitalmars.com... (That and the fact most profs never worry about what a book costs when they spend your money) Now *that* one I definitely *don't* have any difficulty believing. Hell, half of the college classes out there amount to nothing more than US$2k book recommendations. That hasn't been my experience. I've had a lot of professors who've said whether the previous (used) version of a book would work for the course, and for reading-intensive courses I've ever had professors who xeroxed massive amounts of material to hand out to spare students the expense of buying books. Another option at many universities is to go to the school library. They generally have all the course material available for students to use... they just can't leave with it. Oh, I've certainly had a lot of instructors like that too. Maybe about half of them. But the problem is, for such a terrible problem, anything remotely near that figure is an absolutely horrible ratio. I also don't understand why professors seem to always choose academic textbooks on the subject when I know there are infinitely better trade books available (which I generally already own). Hear hear!! There's also another phenomenon I've noticed: Classes that never use the book, *except* for heavy use of it during the first two weeks. Call me paranoid, but I can't imagine any realistic explanation for that other than trying to trick students who have learned not to buy books until they see the class *really does* require it (as opposed to the classes that merely claim to require it.) Heck, one of the schools I went to, I know for a fact that the instructors were *required* to choose a required book for their course and have the bookstore order it. A handful of instructors would say on the first day of class Did you get the required book for this course? No? Good. Don't. And if you have, go take it back. They just required me to pick one. We won't use it, so don't get it.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Nick Sabalausky wrote: Brad Roberts bra...@puremagic.com wrote in message news:mailman.71.1242359810.13405.digitalmar...@puremagic.com... BCS wrote: Anyway, it's an ugly cycle that's bound to implode eventually. I wish that were true, but I'm not convinced. My experiences at three different colleges indicate there's a lot of things about college that by all means *should* have imploded long ago. The problem is that college and anything claiming to be education has become such a sacred cow in our society that pretty much any amount of bullshit is, and will continue to be, tolerated for the foreseeable future. When I went to college, most of the textbooks were what the prof wrote on the chalkboards during lecture. I didn't actually spend much on textbooks - few were required, and the rest I picked up used. I still have them. The current scheme is so blatantly disrespectful of their customers (students) I don't see how it can persist.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Walter Bright newshou...@digitalmars.com wrote in message news:guirn4$mb...@digitalmars.com... Nick Sabalausky wrote: Brad Roberts bra...@puremagic.com wrote in message news:mailman.71.1242359810.13405.digitalmar...@puremagic.com... BCS wrote: Anyway, it's an ugly cycle that's bound to implode eventually. I wish that were true, but I'm not convinced. My experiences at three different colleges indicate there's a lot of things about college that by all means *should* have imploded long ago. The problem is that college and anything claiming to be education has become such a sacred cow in our society that pretty much any amount of bullshit is, and will continue to be, tolerated for the foreseeable future. When I went to college, most of the textbooks were what the prof wrote on the chalkboards during lecture. I didn't actually spend much on textbooks - few were required, and the rest I picked up used. I still have them. You know, you've consistently been getting me impressed with your school ;) Caltech was it? I've been to a big public state university, a small supposedly well-respected private university, and a community college (that was highly-regarded, at least for a community college). I had many major issues with all of them (of course, I had major issues with K-12 as well ;) ). But, tech schools, I've never been to one (never got in, and they tend to be expensive anyway). I wonder if these things are specific to Caltech or if they tend to be typical of tech schools? The current scheme is so blatantly disrespectful of their customers (students) I don't see how it can persist. They're sacred cows. I'm convinced that's how it happens.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
Sean Kelly s...@invisibleduck.org wrote in message news:guip5e$i9...@digitalmars.com... Nick Sabalausky wrote: Cons: I've never been much of a fan of them. Rarely look at them, and never do them. But more than that, I find opening a book and seeing of bunch of exercises and end of chapter quizzes rather off-putting. I have a few books I bought largely for reference material where stuff was omitted and left as an exercise to the reader (I'm looking at you, Sedgewick!) Regardless of how easy some of these exercises may be for me to solve, it isn't something I'm generally in the mood for when I pick up the book at work to check something. However, this isn't a book about algorithms so perhaps this isn't an issue really. Maybe I'm contradicting my own original point here, but I actually did buy a book once where exercises were actually the entire point of the book (it does have solutions). It's called Find The Bug, and has source for a bunch of functions in various languages, each one with a hidden bug to find (obviously). Many of them basically point out gotchas in the langauges (IIRC, C, Python, and maybe Java and something else). It sounded kind of neat, like a programmer's puzzle book. Although I still haven't actually gotten around to it though. It's sitting there in my ever-growing pile of stuff to read...someday.
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
zkp0s wrote: Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: A chunky fragment of TDPL will hit Rough Cuts soon enough. I'm pondering whether I should be adding exercises to the book. Some books have them, some don't. Pros: As I'm writing, I've come up with some pretty darn cool exercise ideas. Cons: The book gets larger, takes longer to write, and I never solved the exercises in the books I've read, but then I'm just weird. What do you think? Thanks, Andrei I think that TDPL book could have *some* exercises. Not at the point of being filled of exercises, but some understandable exercises that might be (very) helpful. I think it would be great to see some appliances (step-by-step) of the lessons, somthing like ordering with binary trees in arrays. By the way. Is d2 focused? is it like a textbook or a reference book? D2 exclusively. Textbook modeled after KR. Andrei
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
D2 exclusively. Textbook modeled after KR. Will D2 be finalized (similar to D1) when the book comes out?
Re: Please Vote: Exercises in TDPL?
grauzone wrote: D2 exclusively. Textbook modeled after KR. Will D2 be finalized (similar to D1) when the book comes out? That's the plan. Andrei
