Question

ok, so i watched lect4 thought i understood it ok then proceeded to the recitation...

the first question out of the gate on recitation baffled me to the point that i stopped watching the recitation and started watching the lecture again trying to figure out where the hell the answer to the first question in recitation came from. (not to mention the fact that the students replies are not audible)
please, where do i find the answers for these questions on recitation if they're not covered in the lectures and vice versa?

Answer 1

The recitations are one of the graduate students oing things with a small group of students. So they follow a lot of the same material as the main lectures, but in more detail.

Answer 2

You could post your question, the actual question not a reference to a video, here and we'll try to help you.

Answer 3

I assume you're referring to the recitation found in the lecture 4 folder, titles "recitation-2-loops-tuples-strings-and-functions." If so, the first question is in regards to "for" and "while" loops, which are explained in lectures 2-3, not 4.

Hope this helps.

Answer 4

yes, those were covered, but, the questions he asked.. were not. if i'm not able to answer the questions in the recitation based on what i'm 'taught' in the lecture, how am i epxected to learn when there are no corresponding textbooks?

the entire point to this is that i've watched the lectures multiple times and still do not understand what he's talking about in the recitation. i know what a for loop is, i know what a tuple is, but the questions he asked were not covered in the lectures. there's either assumed knowledge or a text with mandatory reading that isnt stipulated in the course description.

Answer 5

So what are "the questions" ?

Answer 6

i stopped watching the mit lectures and found a course that actually explains everything in detail.

the lectures are good, and the recitations are good, but they both leave out bits and pieces of assumed knowledge that i simply do not have, as will most people watching the lectures. if you watch the youtube comments you'll see what i'm talking about... a large percentage of viewers are left in the dark on several things just in the first 4 lectures and 2 recitations. it is discouraging.

Answer 7

I'm beginning to agree with you. What do you recommend?

Answer 8

http://www.codecademy.com/learn

http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/

http://lifehacker.com/how-i-taught-myself-to-code-in-eight-weeks-511615189

the codecademy has tutorials in pretty much everything which is awesome, but some of the instruction sets are a little vague at times, but i've progressed much farther with that than i did with the MIT lectures.

the 'hard way' actually isnt, it's pretty sensible and well thought out. also there's a ton of videos on youtube explaining the lessons by various people.

the lifehacker site gives general advice on what to study but i found that there are lots of useful links there.

i plan to later come back and watch the mit lectures, maybe i'll have that epiphany that he so badly wants for his students to have (i thought it was great that he's waiting for it, and nobody makes a single sound and he has to 'come on guys' the entire mit classroom). makes me feel better about myself, if those geniuses cant understand him either then maybe i'm not a complete idiot.

like i said, mit has great ocw and the lectures and recitations are i'm sure pretty awesome, but they're definitely not for beginner programmers. maybe for beginner PYTHON programmers with experience in other languages.

Answer 9

Great, thanks : )

Answer 10

sure thing :)