RumbuncTheRadiant

I also would love to hear a response to this question.

Hamming is the author of what I regard as the most readable technical book of all time "Coding and Information Theory", in which he explains a lot of Shannon's work.

A deeply mathematical and technical book, but wonderfully clear and concise and understandable.

That was the book that convinced me that my problems with university were not that I am stupid, but that most academics were just really really Bad at explaining things.

Once I had that epiphany, things went a lot better for me, as I started to look the simplicity inside the layers of complexity they were teaching me.

I'm rather grateful to Hamming.

I would also love to know to what extent they worked together on that book.

Thanks for a really in depth reply!

I guess the difference between a Bell Lab like environment and a teaching environment like MIT is you should not look at Shannon's personal work at MIT, but about the work of the Student's he supervised.

ie. In a Bell Lab like "pure research" environment, it's all about what you publish.

In an industrial lab it's all about what you patent.

In a teaching environment it's all about the students you enable.

ie. The measure of Shannon's "post Bell" success should be looked for in the work of his students.

Have you read Stepanov and McJones's "Elements of Programming"?

What are your thoughts on it?