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460 points pieterr | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.227s | source
1. rednafi ◴[] No.42160676[source]
This is great, but it’s not what I get paid for. I’ve yet to work at a place where I thought, “If only I had read SICP, things would be easier.”

I work with distributed systems, writing business logic and dealing with infrastructure concerns. For me, learning about databases, quirks of distributed systems, and patterns for building fault-tolerant services is more important than reading the nth book on structuring programs, deciding which algorithm to use, or figuring out whether my algorithm has O(1) or O(n) complexity.

This doesn’t mean CS fundamentals aren’t important—they are—but I work in a different space. I’d get more value out of reading Designing Data-Intensive Applications than SICP. If I were in the business of building frameworks or databases, I’d probably be the target audience.