43 review for Simply Scheme: Introducing Computer Science

1. 

   5 out of 5

   Kenghis Khan – Jul 25, 2007

   The extra star is for the excessive effort these guys had to put in for what they did. It was not very effective. The biggest problem of this book is that it's full of confusing explanations the designers hoped would be "heuristic." This problem permeates the work from start to finish. The use of the special commands by the authors, not part of standard scheme, makes very little sense in most classroom settings that teach Scheme in the hopes of teaching functional programming. The whole idea of The extra star is for the excessive effort these guys had to put in for what they did. It was not very effective. The biggest problem of this book is that it's full of confusing explanations the designers hoped would be "heuristic." This problem permeates the work from start to finish. The use of the special commands by the authors, not part of standard scheme, makes very little sense in most classroom settings that teach Scheme in the hopes of teaching functional programming. The whole idea of functional programming is that you have a bare group of essential concepts AND commands, and work your way from there. I had the great misfortune of taking a class where we weren't allowed to use the specially designed scheme commands for this book, but still had to buy it. If you are in that predicament, the book is completely worthless. Furthermore, while I admire the author's desire to prepare people for SICP, their treatment of this task borders on arrogance. At one point they actually suggest that "SICP was designed for MIT students" and that the rest of us aren't worthy of it yet. Quite frankly for anybody willing to take the time, SICP is not as terrifying as these guys make it out to be. This is a weak book.

2. 

   4 out of 5

   Toni – Dec 21, 2011

   This was the assigned textbook for an intro CS course at UNH when they used to start out with Scheme. While I enjoy Scheme and LISP, I never got too into the languages and therefor haven't read any other Scheme books, so I don't have much to compare this book too. But the book was effective in teaching the language and making a good introduction to functional languages for those only accustomed to imperative ones. This was the assigned textbook for an intro CS course at UNH when they used to start out with Scheme. While I enjoy Scheme and LISP, I never got too into the languages and therefor haven't read any other Scheme books, so I don't have much to compare this book too. But the book was effective in teaching the language and making a good introduction to functional languages for those only accustomed to imperative ones.

3. 

   5 out of 5

   Ender.viking –

4. 

   5 out of 5

   Ronald Perrella –

5. 

   4 out of 5

   Mohamed Badawi –

6. 

   5 out of 5

   Erik Haliewicz –

7. 

   5 out of 5

   James Beckwith –

8. 

   4 out of 5

   Keith Lawrence –

9. 

   5 out of 5

   Anthony Shull –

10. 

    5 out of 5

    Tom Duckering –

11. 

    4 out of 5

    John Warner –

12. 

    4 out of 5

    Bristling –

13. 

    4 out of 5

    Costa Kazistov –

14. 

    5 out of 5

    Abeppu –

15. 

    5 out of 5

    V –

16. 

    5 out of 5

    Rishi –

17. 

    5 out of 5

    Samantha –

18. 

    5 out of 5

    Micah Elliott –

19. 

    4 out of 5

    Coiajoafwej –

20. 

    5 out of 5

    Joshua Paley –

21. 

    4 out of 5

    Fotis Koutoulakis –

22. 

    5 out of 5

    Alexey Belkov –

23. 

    4 out of 5

    notv –

24. 

    4 out of 5

    Daniel Goldman –

25. 

    4 out of 5

    Bert Van Vreckem –

26. 

    4 out of 5

    rev –

27. 

    4 out of 5

    Carolyn –

28. 

    4 out of 5

    Eelvex –

29. 

    5 out of 5

    Dnyaneshwer Pendurkar –

30. 

    5 out of 5

    J –

31. 

    4 out of 5

    Darrell Paul –

32. 

    5 out of 5

    Robert –

33. 

    4 out of 5

    Chris –

34. 

    4 out of 5

    Rachel –

35. 

    5 out of 5

    Aikoch –

36. 

    4 out of 5

    Howard Messing –

37. 

    4 out of 5

    Daniel De –

38. 

    5 out of 5

    Kai –

39. 

    4 out of 5

    Dhaval Trivedi –

40. 

    5 out of 5

    hyacinth –

41. 

    5 out of 5

    Beachside Law –

42. 

    4 out of 5

    Peter Tsampakiouris –

43. 

    4 out of 5

    Manolis Ragkousis –