The class was definitely out of my comfort zone in terms of the physics, but I loved the scheme system that allowed us to focus on the concepts, and leave the grunge to the computer. It's liberating to have an unambiguous notation, but it doesn't replace intuition.
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I once took the MIT class on which this book is based: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/gjs/6946/index.html
If anyone's interested, my problem sets solutions are here: http://www.cag.csail.mit.edu/~namin/mechanics/
The class was definitely out of my comfort zone in terms of the physics, but I loved the scheme system that allowed us to focus on the concepts, and leave the grunge to the computer. It's liberating to have an unambiguous notation, but it doesn't replace intuition.