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Poll: Have you read SICP?

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Re: Poll: Have you read SICP?

#64
post #29

"No, I don't feel it's relevant/valuable enough to make the time for it."

By way of explanation: this is a poll, my choice is not an option, therefore I posted it instead of merely upvoting it.

This answer is roughly equivalent to "Would like to but probably won't in the near future."

Re: Poll: Have you read SICP?

#67
Nah, I'll read CTM (Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming)[1] first, as it addresses concurrency, for example, and seems to be easier to digest. CTM is viewed by some as a/the modern successor of SICP.

I had been looking for opinions regarding CTM vs SICP to choose which to read first and I've found two postings [2][3] from a mailing list to be very helpful in that regard. Also a comment on HN[4].

I do plan to read SICP sometime in the future as I'm already interested in Lisp, i.e. I'm reading Practical Common Lisp, On Lisp, deferred Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming for later and plan to read Lisp In Small Pieces, which covers compilation.

I've also stumbled across PLAI (Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation)[5] by Shriram Krishnamurthi which seems to cover similar topics, and I plan to dive into that sometime in the future as well. If someone can tell where PLAI stands in contrast to SICP or CTM, that would be very helpful. Ah well... I found an opinion [6] on that too.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Concepts-Techniques-Models-Computer-Pr...

[2] http://lists.racket-lang.org/users/archive/2008-February/022...

[3] http://lists.racket-lang.org/users/archive/2008-February/022...

[4] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1119132

[5] http://www.cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Books/ProgLangs/200...

[6] http://schemers.livejournal.com/584.html?thread=1864#t1864

Re: Poll: Have you read SICP?

#68
I'm reading it right at the moment. It's a bit of struggle coming from a Oracle/Ruby background - particularly with some of the high level (for me) maths background required.

I often think of working thru HTDP instead, but finishing SICP has become somewhat of an obsession - I will not stop til I have worked thru the thing from start to finish, no matter how long it takes . . . (and so far, it's taken about 6 months)

Re: Poll: Have you read SICP?

#69

Personally, I'm a physician with an undergrad in physics, played with logo and basic as a kid. I picked up SICP and got to chapter 2 or 3 on my own time last summer but set it down to go learn Python as it was pretty obvious Abelson and Sussman expect you to either be a bachelor's degree candidate with a lot of time to work on this, or you have a substantial background understanding to bring to bear. I tried Ruby but…

> My goal is really to add math to my diet, ...

I've started reading "The Haskell Road to Logic, Maths and Programming", maybe that's something for you or some other lurker here that would like to improve on math.

There is a review [2] that gives an interesting impression on the book. The other ones at amazon might also be interesting.

The table of contents + first chapter is available as a postscript file[3]. This should give you an idea what to expect from the book.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Haskell-Logic-Maths-Programming-Comput...

[2] http://www.amazon.com/review/R3CL50MCVEO7UA/ref=cm_cr_pr_per...

[3] http://www.cwi.nl/~jve/HR/HR-27.ps.gz

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