Since you are already answering questions: when can we expect BitTorrent Inc to publish the protocol or at least add the option to run and use your own tracker for syncing?
SyncApp is wonderful but I don't feel comfortable with it being closed source and your infrastructure being used. Thus I use it only to transfer files between computers I wouldn't mind sharing with the world.
Thanks for the question and feedback. First, keep in mind that Sync is a beta product and we’re still actively building it, things are evolving every day. We’re investing a ton of time and money into it, there’s a ton of great stuff happening and more coming.
As for your question, yes, we're planning on releasing a version that will allow for you to use your own tracker - unfortunately we don’t have timing yet for that but it is in the works. We're working hard to make a great product and to support everyone as best we can.
As someone eyeing SICP with previous programming experience should I do SICP first and then do these koans? How big is the difference between Scheme and Common Lisp?
You dont do SICP to "learn Lisp", you do SICP to learn fundamental programming principles. SICP just happens to use Scheme because one of the authors of SICP was also one of the authors of Scheme. The difference between Scheme and Lisp is big enough to justify them having different names and Scheme not being "just another dialect of Lisp".
The problem with Scheme is not the language, the problem is that the ecosystem is so hopelessly balkanized, that it is useless for practical purposes and nobody uses it for anything interesting except for teaching of SICP. You have tiny standards covering only base language constructs, and everything else is left to implementations of which 1001 different one exists and each implements the same stuff in a different, incompatible way, so there is no code portability. So an large number of Scheme users, instead of developing interesting and useful _new_ libraries, instead rewrite 1001 different implementations and 1001 different manuals covering the same area. If you write something and tell me you wrote it in Scheme, the first thing I'd have to ask is "Which one?" because your code will not run on the 1000 remaining ones. The scheme ecosystem is the prime example of code non-reuse, of the NIH syndrome and waste of man-decades of effort, so while the language itself is nice for teaching, the existing worst-practices are examples of what _not_ to do.
SICP doesn't 'just happen' to use Scheme; the simple language from a well-chosen combination of powerful mechanisms is the kind of thing they're teaching you to design. The medium is part of the message. (Yes, you can solve the problems using another language; I used XLisp.)
On 'dialects of Lisp': it used to be standard for very different Lisp-family languages to be called that, while nowadays someone will always contradict you if you do. It seems more of a social change than a technical one to me. (I first noticed it among Common Lispers after the AI winter.)
I know someone impressive doing real work with Scheme (though I recommended they try Lua). I don't know whether you're right about the Scheme ecosystem, as I've been elsewhere the last 15 years.
I would go with "How to design programs" - looks at the beginning to be siplistic, but it gives a lot of understanding about lisp like languages.
Then I would go with SCIP and then Koans.
I am treating lisps as a kind of mind game (I dont like crosswords :) so I do Lisp) since I cannot use it for everyday job so from my point of view Scheme and Lisp are not very different. There is different approach to things like mutable state and other more advanced concepts, but basics are the same.
If you want to have at least an illusion of learning Lisp that can catch up one day, learn Clojure. Or go with Scheme's ugly duckling son - JavaScript. :)
SICP [2nd edition] is flat out just a more readable book than HtDP [first print edition, second edition is not in print but looks to be significantly improved].
As textbooks, it may be a bit of a different story, the tone of SICP is certainly cockier. There's less acknowledgement that mathematics is just domain knowledge within the context of an introductory "computer science" course. Then again, HtDP had two decades of experience with SICP upon which to draw. It also has the practical advantage of assuming that students had high levels of access to computers capable of running Lisp. That wasn't the case in the late 1970's and early 80's (or even the late 80's and mid 90's).
A course (lightly)based on HtDP is also starting in Coursera in a few days- https://www.coursera.org/course/programdesign. It uses Racket and the first two weeks of videos are already up so you can preview them.
While CL and scheme are both lisp dialects, they are quite different. Just to make a pair of examples, CL has two separate namespaces for variables and functions, scheme only one; scheme has guaranteed tail call optimization (which is used often to solve problems recursively), CL depends on implementations. To do these koans I would first go through Practical Common Lisp by Seibel http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/
The optimization of tail-call optimization is converting some recursive procedure descriptions into iterative processes. A recursive procedure description may instead describe a necessarily recursive process. The difference between descriptions and the procedures they produce is one of the issues covered in SICP - most explicitly by Ableson in one of the videos.
If you're already a programmer, you should probably read Paul Graham's On Lisp. It's a technical book, written by an advocate but before he became a VC or took up writing on woolly topics like the relationship of programming to painting.
This has been this way for the last few versions or rather since they changed the UI in version 11 I think. This allows you do double click this array to return to window mode or "drag it down" from maximized which will return it to window mode (Windows).
What OS? I have Firefox for Windows and have no unclickable space between the top of the tabs and top of the screen. I've never experienced that before on any release I can remember.
No there are few few pieces that would deserve to stay on. Most isn't more than ugly names (at least not tags). But what I hate most is when they cover the windows, seriously?
To this end, trains in Melbourne won't even run if there is graffiti on any surface. Creates some incredible delays, but people have all but stopped touching public trains here due to it.
DB could supply free masking tape and plastic sheeting to cover the windows while the artists work.
Why not go further and put up the train carriage specs/dimensions in an easy to use template online, so you can lay out your design in advance to take account of the windows.
Going any further like sponsoring chosen designs might backfire because then it all gets viewed as too commercial, and we'll get people defacing the corporate graffiti.
Here's the thing: The trains have already been decorated by artists that have laid out their designs in a way that takes account of the windows. When those design were applied, the windows were covered by masking tape and plastic sheeting provided by DB. In fact, the trains were taken out of service and placed in a depot for the application of the artwork. Pretty awesome, huh?
> Why not go further and put up the train carriage specs/dimensions in an easy to use template online, so you can lay out your design in advance to take account of the windows.
such stuff has been available in graffiti shops for decades :) but a little hint: nobody cares about windows :)
> Going any further like sponsoring chosen designs might backfire because then it all gets viewed as too commercial, and we'll get people defacing the corporate graffiti.
yes. google for 'adisux', an Adidas' Warsaw fiasco when they covered part of the horse racing track wall (longest graffiti gallery in Europe) for an ad and got trashed to the point the scandal got to tv, their pr firm got into panic mode for a week and in general, how to say it, their marketing campaign didn't work out.
yeah, I just added the bit about wholecars. well, I don't believe graffiti is a bigger "problem" now than in the 90s when it spread as a subcultural phenomenon around Europe (just like in the 70s-80s in the US). I remember how I was amazed at how Berlin looked back in the day. Warsaw trains are also 'clean' now. I sincerely believe it's an excuse for some political experiments with drones, than fighting graffiti.
They would all be channeled through your local law enforcement though.
If swedish police comes to you directly, you don't have to comply, but if they go through the proper channels, the request to you, comes from canadian police.
SyncApp is wonderful but I don't feel comfortable with it being closed source and your infrastructure being used. Thus I use it only to transfer files between computers I wouldn't mind sharing with the world.