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SICP: The only computer science book worth reading twice? (2010)

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Re: SICP: The only computer science book worth reading twice? (2010)

#11

Post by FredPret »

abeppu wrote: post #10

> In fact, I’d go further and say that it’s the only computer science book of that age that I’d happily and usefully read again without it being just for historical interest: the content has barely aged at all. That’s not all that unusual for mathematics books, but it’s almost unheard of in computer science, where the ideas move so quickly and where much of what’s written about is ephemeral rather than foundational.…

I think just like traditional engineers have to learn physics, computer people should learn these fundamentals for exactly the reason you outline.

Then, when you hit the job market, you learn the ecosystem of what other engineers have built and you work in that context.

In this way, you can eventually reach extreme productivity. Just look at humanity's GDP over the last 200 years.

Re: SICP: The only computer science book worth reading twice? (2010)

#12

Post by alabhyajindal »

I really wanted to like SICP but Lisp throws me off. I love Haskell and Standard ML however! Did others have a similar experience? Might be interesting to read a book similar in spirit to SICP but using a different language as a vehicle (No, I don't want to do SICP in JavaScript).

Re: SICP: The only computer science book worth reading twice? (2010)

#13

Post by chongli »

abeppu wrote: post #10

> In fact, I’d go further and say that it’s the only computer science book of that age that I’d happily and usefully read again without it being just for historical interest: the content has barely aged at all. That’s not all that unusual for mathematics books, but it’s almost unheard of in computer science, where the ideas move so quickly and where much of what’s written about is ephemeral rather than foundational.…

I recall that when MIT stopped teaching with SICP, one of the main claims was that programming now is often not about thinking abstractions through from first principles, and creating some isolated gem of composing definitions.

Which is a category mistake that they actually address in the lectures. SICP is not a programming course, it’s a computer science course. Computer science is not about computers, let alone programming, just as geometry is not about surveying instruments and astronomy is not about telescopes.

When they stopped teaching SICP — in response to the pressure to teach more modern tools — they abandoned their scientific principles to satisfy commercial concerns. They stopped teaching computer science and became a vocational school for the tech industry.

Re: SICP: The only computer science book worth reading twice? (2010)

#15

Post by horeszko »

alabhyajindal wrote: post #12

I really wanted to like SICP but Lisp throws me off. I love Haskell and Standard ML however! Did others have a similar experience? Might be interesting to read a book similar in spirit to SICP but using a different language as a vehicle (No, I don't want to do SICP in JavaScript).

I think there is a Python version if that floats your boat

Re: SICP: The only computer science book worth reading twice? (2010)

#16

Post by owl_vision »

neilv wrote: post #3

The article has a broken link for the free copy: https://mitp-content-server.mit.edu/books/content/sectbyfn/b... https://web.mit.edu/6.001/6.037/sicp.pdf I hadn't seen a blessed PDF version until today. Circa 2001, only the HTML version was freely available, and someone converted it to TeXinfo: https://www.neilvandyke.org/sicp-texi/ If anyone wants to work through SICP today, you can run the code in MIT Scheme, or in…

Dr Racket has SICP and HTDP as a teaching pack.

Re: SICP: The only computer science book worth reading twice? (2010)

#18

Post by rustybolt »

alabhyajindal wrote: post #12

I really wanted to like SICP but Lisp throws me off. I love Haskell and Standard ML however! Did others have a similar experience? Might be interesting to read a book similar in spirit to SICP but using a different language as a vehicle (No, I don't want to do SICP in JavaScript).

I really wanted to like SICP and I probably would have if I read it 15 years ago. I started reading it last month and I found it to be too broad. It covers too much interesting mathematical principles and then jumps to the next one right when it starts to get interesting. In other words, it's too shallow.

It probably doesn't help that I've seen many courses/documents that are (in hindsight) derivatives from SICP, so I have the nagging thought "not this again" when a topic is introduced in SICP.

Re: SICP: The only computer science book worth reading twice? (2010)

#19

Post by shrubble »

owl_vision wrote: post #14

i'd also recommend "Concrete Abstractions: An Introduction to Computer Science using Scheme" by Max Hailperin, Barbara Keiser, Karl Knight. http://www.gustavus.edu/+max/concrete-abstractions.html

I concur, I am learning from it now…

Re: SICP: The only computer science book worth reading twice? (2010)

#20

Post by jgon »

neilv wrote: post #3

The article has a broken link for the free copy: https://mitp-content-server.mit.edu/books/content/sectbyfn/b... https://web.mit.edu/6.001/6.037/sicp.pdf I hadn't seen a blessed PDF version until today. Circa 2001, only the HTML version was freely available, and someone converted it to TeXinfo: https://www.neilvandyke.org/sicp-texi/ If anyone wants to work through SICP today, you can run the code in MIT Scheme, or in…

The texinfo version was I believe the source for the really nice HTML5 version if you want to read it in a browser, but with nice formatting that the MIT original version: https://sarabander.github.io/sicp/
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