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

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. Instead, we interact with and rely on a rich ecosystem of libraries and tools which often have individual quirks and discordant assumptions, and engineering then takes on a flavor of discovering and exploring the properties and limitations of those technologies.

I think now, (some) people also are at the point of not even directly learning about the limitations and capability of each tool in their toolbox, but leaning heavily on generative tools to suggest low-level tactics. I think this will lead to an even messier future, where library code which works on (possibly generated) unit tests will bear some fragile assumption which was never even realized in the head of the engineer that prompted for it, and will not only fail but will be incorporated in training data and generated in the future.

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.

I don't see what you mean by this at all. Furthermore this doesn't strike me as a useful distinction when a) it doesn't cover most topics labeled by consensus as "computer science" and b) it very clearly does teach a great deal about programming.

Why not say it teaches computer science and programming skills? Why do these have to be exclusive? There's obviously a great deal of overlap in general.

The goal of the course is not to teach programming skills, it's to teach computer science. The difference is explained quite thoroughly in the lectures. One might even say that answering the question "what is computer science?" is one of the core goals of the course and a major part of the philosophy of the professors who created the course.

The argument being made by the comparisons to geometry and astronomy is that in any discipline there is a difference between means and ends: what you are attempting to achieve is distinct from the tools you're using to achieve it. Furthermore, it's a mistake to believe that the discipline is all about the tools. No, the tools are the means, not the end.