SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#1

Post by dS0rrow » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 10:40 PM UTC

SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order
mitpress.mit.edu

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#2

Post by moralestapia » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 11:17 PM UTC

Whoops, they beat me to it. Super nice, I hope it gets very well received by all people interested in FP.

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#3

Post by shrubble » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 11:21 PM UTC

I admit, I did a double-take: thought it was a joke,at first... like those meme-oriented O'Reilly book covers.

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#4

Post by perihelions » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 11:23 PM UTC

Note to the unaware, both* this version and the classic (Scheme) version are Creative Commons-licensed and freely available online. (*edit: thanks to keithwinstein for enlightening me -- I wrongly thought it was just the one. The publisher's site doesn't advertise this at all!)

https://sicp.sourceacademy.org/ (JS version)

https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/index.html (1984 classic)

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#5

Post by strictfp » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 11:25 PM UTC

WHAT? They skipped all the way from Lisp to JS? Why?

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#6

Post by nobleach » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 11:28 PM UTC

One major benefit here is how approachable this is. One could even simply open Dev Tools on their browser and use the console as a REPL. As someone who installed Scheme/Dr Scheme/Dr Racket long ago, it's nice to say, "you can get started right now". I know there'll be a lot of complaint about JS as a language choice but, it's pretty ubiquitous. And, much like Scheme, no one's saying, "you should use this for your next app that you have planned"

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#7

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 11:30 PM UTC

strictfp wrote: post #5

WHAT? They skipped all the way from Lisp to JS? Why?

[deleted]

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#8

Post by eggy » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 11:30 PM UTC

First they replace Scheme with Python for their CS classes, and now SICP in JavaScript! Isn't this another portent from Nostradamus about the coming of the end of the world?

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#9

Post by keithwinstein » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 11:33 PM UTC

perihelions wrote: post #4

Note to the unaware, both* this version and the classic (Scheme) version are Creative Commons-licensed and freely available online. (*edit: thanks to keithwinstein for enlightening me -- I wrongly thought it was just the one. The publisher's site doesn't advertise this at all!) https://sicp.sourceacademy.org/ (JS version) https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/index.html (1984 classic)

I believe they are both CC-licensed. See https://sicp.sourceacademy.org/

A ton of work seems to have gone into this -- they have a meta-circular evaluator in JavaScript (and it's not that much longer than the original Scheme)!

Re: SICP: JavaScript Edition available for pre-order

#10

Post by bmitc » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 11:35 PM UTC

I saw this the other day on Amazon while picking up the SICP instructor's edition. For the life of me, I can't figure out why they chose JavaScript to do this. And the new authors are professors.

Since the original SICP has a permissive license, I've actually thought about doing something similar, but with a more modern functional language.