I think that when people talk about reading code, they really mean working with it, modifying it so that it suits your style and understanding, as Peter Seibel touches on here
https://gigamonkeys.com/code-reading/ (I need to read that book someday...)
And this is in line with what the Sussman is talking about in the paper
Expressing the methods in a computer language forces them to be unambiguous and computationally effective. Students are expected to read our programs and to extend them and to write new ones. The task of formulating a method as a computer- executable program and debugging that program is a powerful exercise in the learning process.
Notice how he mentions that the students are expected to extend the programs. I believe this is actually a similar process of learning to what the article above mentions.
I agree with him. Sufficiently succinct algorithm written in a language the person understands can have both the expressiveness of a mathematical formula and the additional benefit of being able to trace its execution step by step with the help of a computer.
The core idea for me here is that the Sussman expresses a belief that the switch to ``algorithmic'' thinking, more in terms how computers execute tasks, will greatly aid us in understanding things that are currently complex, so much in fact that we will be able to reliably explain them to a child. A new way of looking at things if you will. And personally, I've seen people use computers to try and explain things like the workings of a human body, and I have as well used computer analogies to aid myself in understanding some things, so he seems to have a point there. But as mentioned in the paper, it might take a long time to really recognize the impact this would have.
The problem is reducing an idea to such an algorithm, which necessarily limits the domain to things that can be reliably abstracted away and simulated. Well, it's probably not nearly as limiting for the Sussman, or other big brains.
>>17
I don't think Electrical Circuits and in Signals and Systems is a course. I believe however that this is the Classical Mechanics course he mentioned in the paper
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/12-620j-classical-mechanics-a-computational-approach-fall-2008/