So I once happened to be at a company where I was lucky enough to have several colleagues join me in an SICP reading group. We squatted in a conference room once a week and plowed through as many sections as we could during lunch.
The key feature of the reading group, I thought, was that we were able to identify, right in our production code, right there in the conference room, instances where we used particular idioms from the SICP section under discussion. It was that identification of actual fancy SICP concepts (in scheme-world) in the familiar production code (java-world) that made this particularly worthwhile; folks (including me) saw a whole bunch of places where our java codebase would be (or had already been) improved by applying what we were reading about in the book. It was among the more useful exercises of my professional career so far.
So perhaps this django-based discussion group could include illustrations from a reasonable open source codebase (django itself?).
Sounds like an awesome idea. Having practical examples would really help hammer the ideas into your head as well.
I'm glad that people think the idea is good. There is so much goodness in SICP (I only read halfway through it). I really think adding some external context like your suggestion kind of brings new life into the discussion. A lot of the concepts in the book are ageless, and it's instructive that we are still making the same mistakes today!
They are all talking about discussion groups, not book clubs. Why doesn't someone (who knows a lot more than me, or I'd do it myself) start a Amazon Associates bookstore with books for hackers? I would definitely be interested in that. If anyone knows of something like that, or a good hacker study guide, maybe leave a link? Before someone recommends it, I've already seen esr's "How to Become a Hacker" http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html . I'm looking for more practical programming study that would be useful for hackers and programming.
You know, I have seen so many intriguing-sounding books recommended and discussed here on HN - and not just on strictly 'hacker' topics. Like it says in the guidelines, "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." I want to read them. I can't keep track of them!
Would it be possible to automatically collate these books somehow, with hn-ers' comments? Maybe with check boxes for what you've already read, and integrate it with HN accounts?
The key feature of the reading group, I thought, was that we were able to identify, right in our production code, right there in the conference room, instances where we used particular idioms from the SICP section under discussion. It was that identification of actual fancy SICP concepts (in scheme-world) in the familiar production code (java-world) that made this particularly worthwhile; folks (including me) saw a whole bunch of places where our java codebase would be (or had already been) improved by applying what we were reading about in the book. It was among the more useful exercises of my professional career so far.
So perhaps this django-based discussion group could include illustrations from a reasonable open source codebase (django itself?).
Sounds like great fun.