A short interlude. One stretch goal for writing this newsletter was that I would find more of the people out there with some subset of my strange collection of interests, and start to build a small community of folks interested in what I’m trying to do.
It worked! I’ve been having a series of inspiring conversations about these essays on email, and I want to do it more.
I’ve started a Discord server for the newsletter. Discord is an app that hosts small communities that want to chat or code together. You can click this link to join the Road to Reality server: https://discord.gg/7MgKgc6
I’m going to hang out in this chat room, and drop notes and references as I continue to work on the code around this SICM project, the SICM exercises themselves, and the more interactive stuff I’m working on but haven’t talked about yet.
There is no pressure to join! But I’d love it if you did. No need to talk, but I’d be thrilled if you let me know what you’re up to and what you’re working on.
Also, if you’re working through any studying of your own, SICM or otherwise, and want to talk through anything, I would love to offer help or work through exercises together.
Come on in! Once again, here’s the link: https://discord.gg/7MgKgc6
Hi Sam
Just a very quick note to say hello, found this from the link on github's SICMutils site. I like your concept! I tried to log on Discord, but my device doesn't support the app, I'll try again later with a different one.
Yes, I do like messing around with this stuff, my main constraints at the moment are
1) time
2) huge gaps in basic foundation knowledge
I am working as fast as I can on 2) not much I can do about 1) at present
I am delighted to see that Colin finally has someone that actually knows what they're doing contributing to the project. I tried to help a bit in the very early days (pre-conference-video) with some testing. Dunno if I helped at all, but I did have some very interesting conversations with Colin, especially about the core nature of SICMutils: specifically seeing it as a suite of elegantly coupled utilities that is language-agnostic at heart. You know, generic types, up/down structures, AD, bit of standard CAS stuff, etc, but all from a functional orientation, with Spivak as the lodestar, as I think lrc put it.
At the moment I'm not working much with the Clojure port, but I am following the github PRs. I often try to think about implications and implementations of a generic type system, including irrationals, first class series, polynomials, etc.
My maths is lacking in many areas, but my medium term project is to work through FDG.
I'm also having a little sojourn into FPGAs, revisiting SICP Ch.5
Anyways, just to say I'm around, even when quiet, and many thanks for your contributions to the sicmutils project! At some stage I may contact you if there's any simple legwork to be done. I'd like to know more about your plans for documentation.
As for the cljs port... wow
If people can get this thing on browser, it may signal the start of a much greater uptake.
All the best and more power to your elbow!
Regards
Alex
Bristol UK