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Going old-school: I'm reading "How to Design Programs" by MIT Press, and using LISP variation (feddit.uk)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by sekxpistol@feddit.uk to c/programming@programming.dev

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It actually uses a variation of LISP. I know old MIT college courses in Computer Science used to teach it.

The book, "How to Design Programs," is based on a variation of LISP, which I know used to be taught in college computer science courses.

I have zero programming experience, but I want to learn—not for a job, just to truly understand it.

A lot of modern advice says to start with Python because it’s easier or faster, but I’m not looking for shortcuts.

I want to go old-school. This book teaches programming with a 1990s-style approach. It may not use the latest tools, but I’ve heard it actually teaches how to think like a programmer and builds real logic skills.

Once I finish it, I plan to take the University of Helsinki’s Java MOOC. Again, sticking to fundamentals and learning the core ideas, not just trendy frameworks.

For context, I’m not naturally a math person either—I’m teaching myself beginning college algebra right now. That’s less about going old-school and more because I never had a college education, so I’m starting from scratch across the board.

So, does this sound like a solid strategy? My goal isn’t a career—just a deep, strong foundation to see if I can really do this.

What do you all think?

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[–] astrsk@fedia.io 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I will always recommend Ben Eater’s breadboard computer 6502 project for anyone who wants to know how it works. The 8-bit breadboard computer project as the next step too, to really dive into all the pieces. But the 6502 project is a nice entry point into hardware itself as well as the basic components of processor and memory. How and what the 1s and 0s are doing and how to make them do what you want them to do. Getting up to a working character display and serial input for a keyboard to type is such a satisfying process that takes only a few hours if you kinda know what you’re doing and a few days if you know nothing.

[–] sekxpistol@feddit.uk -1 points 1 day ago

Great tips. Thank you!