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

(simondobson.org)
460 points pieterr | 4 comments | 16 Nov 24 17:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.822s | source
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whobre ◴[16 Nov 24 20:02 UTC] No.42158823[source]▶
I don’t quite get the cult status of SICP. I read it and it’s a fine beginner programming book, but nothing more.
replies(2): >>42158885 #>>42159817 #
1. jgon ◴[16 Nov 24 20:11 UTC] No.42158885[source]▶
Just so we're clear, this is a "beginner programming book" that has you create a scheme interpreter, then a register machine simulator, then a compiler out of your interpreter that will then have its compiled code run on the register machine simulator, by the final chapter.

This is probably the part where you'd step up and post a link to your repo with solutions to the exercises to back up your talk, but generally I only see this sort of casual dismissal from people who haven't actually worked through the book.

replies(2): >>42159489 #>>42161019 #
2. dbtc ◴[16 Nov 24 21:24 UTC] No.42159489[source]▶
I commend your righteous indignation. Made me smile. Flame on!
replies(1): >>42160562 #
3. becquerel ◴[16 Nov 24 23:38 UTC] No.42160562[source]▶
One aspires to be a hater of such high caliber.
4. veqq ◴[17 Nov 24 00:57 UTC] No.42161019[source]▶
Concrete Abstractions, Schematics of Computation and others from the era (also using Scheme) covered similar ground (and went far further!) SICP is denser and sticks to theory forgoing databases, operating systems and actually implementing scheme in assembly.