This fag book for faggots

>>61685362
Kill yourself, brainlet.

>>61685379
That's not an answer, you queer.

idk about reading it, but i put it on my bookshelf next to taocp and it looks really nice

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Coupled with the video lectures, it remains the best intro to the art of problem solving using computers (i.e. programming) there is.
The underlying concepts have not changed, so that it's old is irrelevant.
And unlike most, you don't waste any time learning a specific language - Lisp just sort of steps out of your way allowing you to really think about the problem at hand, rather than get distracted by or tangled up in any specific idiomatic surface representation.

https://archive.org/details/MIT_Structure_of_Computer_Programs_1986/

If you want to learn to program in an irrelevant language.

>>61686314
>thinks surface language is relevant to learning the core concepts of programming
>doesn't want to play with and learn as many languages as possible

Find a Haskell version of this book, it will make you great at recursion.

>>61686405
It doesn't work when the book teaches you only apply to Scheme.

yes its a meme...
if you want to be forever a pajeet tier programmer.

It was year 1 semester 1 cs in the 80's. if you can't handle it you need to off yourself

>>61686493
t. brainlet can't generalize concepts

>>61686493
Idiot.

>>61687160
I'm sure that's why MIT doesn't use it anymore.

It's a meme, there is a reason it has been replaced in the course syllabus. Scheme is an interesting language, but you would be better off looking at design / algorithm books instead.

HN loves to jerk itself off over how smart the book will make you, but actually building something serious, and in the process of doing so looking up advanced resources to further that project, will make you a far better programmer.

>>61687879

thats because first year CS classes are taken by non-CS students today

Conceptually, there is much to be gleaned but, at the same time, SICP is not some magic incantation that will force enlightenment. Work on building something big (like another anon suggested) and meld with the lambda in your spare time. Or don't. Whatever.

>>61687879
http://www.posteriorscience.net/?p=206

>>61685362

Do it anon.
It will make you a better programmer.

You see, there are two fundamental architectures in computing:
The turing machine and the lambda calculus.

They are have the same power level, but they work completely different. The turing machine is the blueprint for C-family langauges (C, C++, Java and what not). The lambda calculus it the blue print of functional languages (LISP, Scheme, Haskell and so on).

MIT Scheme (which is the language of choice in the book) has very little syntax to learn but it has deep implications. You order your code in trees, you can use code as data and data as code. It's really funky and worth getting through this.

Also it's a very good foundation. If you know the Scheme basics from this book, learning Clojure or even Haskell will be a lot easier.


BTW you should also learn lambda calculus at some point. It's pretty easy but it looks very scary when you look at it first.

>>61685362
It's not a meme. I was really surprised when I started reading through it. It's now maybe my favorite overall text in CS.
This is coming from someone who read it after university and already working as a software engineer.

>>61688238
>Sussman pointed out that engineers now routinely write code for complicated hardware that they don’t fully understand (and often can’t understand because of trade secrecy.)
>According to Sussman, his students spend most of their time reading manuals for these libraries to figure out how to stitch them together to get a job done.
>He said that programming today is “More like science. You grab this piece of library and you poke at it. You write programs that poke it and see what it does. And you say, ‘Can I tweak it to do the thing I want?'”.

This says more about the current state of the industry, and the people working in it, than anything else I've read in the last twenty years.

What can Scheme do that isn't done more quickly with Python or C/C++?

There are plenty of better books today.

If you are writing a book for beginners they one would think that easy and comfy for beginners language should be used, but not in this book, it was written by scientist and it has scientist language.

>>61692998
>it was written by scientist and it has scientist language
Isn't this a good thing if you want to be a programmer and not a code monkey?

>>61693202
Its intro book for new people.

Usually main goal is to describe problem from postion.
>Look how simple it is
not from
>Look how smart I am.

I am not implying that they did it on purpose, just for people that spend years in academia some things seems to be obvious also academia require strong formal language.
Great scientist is not always great teacher.

>>61690178
Basically, yeah. "Programming today is not about understanding what you are doing"

>>61694362
Programming is completely different than in 70'.

Today it plays extremely important role in most economies around the world.

Its that easy exactly thanks to demand.

Programming on the top with several layers of abstraction makes you as good programmer as some meme ASM or lisp programmer. In many cases its much easier to code in asm or lisp because its simple, very logical and it uses simple syntax, while programming in oop require fuckton of libraries, design patterns etc.


As car mechanic do not have to understand CAD or metallurgy 101, modern programmer do not have to understand all layers behind abstraction.


Point where avg person can learn basic programming in few month is golden age. It is what people in IT were working for decades.

It means that even people with years of learning can learn and write something.


People on /g/ are butthurt because current situation shows that programming in no longer elite niche.
In current age you can be good looking with perfect hygiene and at the same time successful programmer and it makes them very mad.

Funniest part is that people who usually tent to defend old sicp usually at the same time hate math and are unable to understand that CS derived from math and usually math/physic students after programming 101 are better programmers that CS monkeys, because math/physic student know how to use logic.

>>61685362
if you have to ask, you have to read it

>>61694584
Do try to make sense next time you post, thanks.

>>61694713
I am from india and my H-1B inverviewer said that I am fluent enlgish

>>61685404
>idk about reading it, but i put it on my bookshelf next to taocp and it looks really nice

I wish I had a spare monitor to set on a shelf and display my PDF collection.

>>61685362
>Is there any point in reading this in this day and age
No, and there never was any point in reading it ever.
>Lisp just sort of steps out of your way allowing
Parens.

>>61691761
nothing, but there are plenty of thing that scheme can not do

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I read a C and C++ book first, then that one. Helped me greatly.

>>61685405
>>61689219
How does this book compare to CTM (Concepts, Techniques and Models)?

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Dirt poor. Where get book free?

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>>61698793
https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html

The information is poorly organized. Like someone else said, just get a book on algorithms first.

It remains the best introductory comp-sci textboox there is, and the goto recommendation so long as the reader has decent maths skills. The fact that it's slipped out of the public mind in some places like /g/ is less to do with any problem SICP has and more because much of the new userbase is made up of fashion `coders' and kids who think maths is unnecessary.

Like others have said, you won't be a genius after reading it, but you will have a very solid foundation on which to build, and which is adequate for many projects already. It's one thing to think you know how to program because you learnt the syntax of C or python and can string together some code, SICP really forces you to understand the process of how programs are evaluated and organised conceptually. Lisp is used because it can be used to illustrate this very effectively and can accommodate a wide variety of programming styles. Anyone who thinks SICP is a book about Scheme has missed the point entirely.

Cormen's "Algorithms" is much better. SICP is just sort of a legacy book that has useful concepts, but are explained better by other books.

>>61702451
Algorithms and SICP are not comparable in the slightest. The former is quite a thorough overview and reference for common algorithms. It's certainly not a text that should be read chapter by chapter.
SICP, on the other hand, is a high-level introduction to models of computation and the techniques of programming. While it contains as smattering of algorithms as any good CS book will, it's not about them and the authors frequently state those present were chosen for ease of illustration and are not necessarily appropriate for real world use.

Suggesting that a total beginner read Introduction to Algorithms in order to learn to program is ridiculously inappropriate. The book also happens to be pretty well on top of the list of texts programming LARPers suggest but have not actually read.

>>61700905
What would you say are prerequisite maths to successfully complete this book?

>>61703956
You'd probably be fine with pre-calc, SICP was a first-year university course. It leans on mathematical and EE concepts because they were also part of MIT's curriculum at the time and could be considered assumed knowledge to be explored programmatically. I suppose the programming concepts could be understood without any prior knowledge in those areas, but writing programs for symbolic differentiation and simulating circuits is unlikely to be engaging.