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Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs has had a dramatic impact on computer science curricula over the past decade. This long-awaited revision contains changes throughout the text.
There are new implementations of most of the major programming systems in the book, including the interpreters and compilers, and the authors have incorporated many small changes that reflect their experience teaching the course at MIT since the first edition was published.
A new theme has been introduced that emphasizes the central role played by different approaches to dealing with time in computational objects with state, concurrent programming, functional programming and lazy evaluation, and nondeterministic programming. There are new example sections on higher-order procedures in graphics and on applications of stream processing in numerical programming, and many new exercises.
In addition, all the programs have been reworked to run in any Scheme implementation that adheres to the IEEE standard.
There are new implementations of most of the major programming systems in the book, including the interpreters and compilers, and the authors have incorporated many small changes that reflect their experience teaching the course at MIT since the first edition was published.
A new theme has been introduced that emphasizes the central role played by different approaches to dealing with time in computational objects with state, concurrent programming, functional programming and lazy evaluation, and nondeterministic programming. There are new example sections on higher-order procedures in graphics and on applications of stream processing in numerical programming, and many new exercises.
In addition, all the programs have been reworked to run in any Scheme implementation that adheres to the IEEE standard.
657 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1984
1506 people are currently reading
20334 people want to read
About the author
Harold Abelson
31 books107 followersHarold 'Hal' Abelson, Ph.D., is Class of 1922 Professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, a fellow of the IEEE, and a founding director of both Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 216 reviews
December 31, 2012
The book was awesome! Abelson and Sussman have created a masterpiece. It provides a great introduction to computer science. The book contains a lot of back referencing and you need to understand previous material in order to grok what you're currently reading. The exercises are key - you can probably accomplish it without doing them, but they really, really help reinforcing the knowledge. They are also fun to do.
The book starts slowly. It might seem a bit basic for the experience programmer, yet I still found it worth to work through the exercises and appreciate the fine points the authors are making. It's worthy to note that the first 2 chapter (out of 5) don't even introduce state. They just elaborate a lot on functions and lists. Chapter 3 becomes more interesting, as state and environments are introduced.
The real gem lies in the final two chapters. Chapter 4 covers interpretation. It starts with writing a rudimentary Scheme interpreter (in Scheme) and continues with two modifications - a lazy version and a non-deterministic version (an interpreter that performs backtracking). The chapter concludes with a logical programming language akin to Prolog. Chapter 5 goes into compilation. First it explores a register machine simulator and afterwards it implements a Scheme evaluator in that register machine using the primitive instructions. The final step is writing a compiler that compiles Scheme code to primitive instructions.
The cherry on the pie is the last three exercises. First you have to compile your Scheme interpreter to the register machine simulator. Afterwards, you have to implement the evaluator in C (based on the one you wrote for the register machine) and provide with the necessary runtime operations (which mostly means memory and garbage collection). Finally, you modify the compiler to generate C code and compile the interpreter, resulting to a Scheme implementation on C.
Apart from fun, the material is a great introduction to a wide variety of topics. If you just want to have a sense about computer science, this is a great book. While it won't go into more advanced topics (such as various compiler optimizations, parsing or advanced data structures), it does a great job of wetting your appetite and giving you and overview. Plus, I cannot state that again - it is so much fun to read and do the exercises.
It took me quite a while to read. I've been wanting to complete it for ages. I started seriously in March 2012 with a study group. We managed to keep up to nearly the end of chapter 3, after which I continued on my own. Out of the time since, I've spent 19 weeks in total on reading and doing exercises. I have my solutions (and various other notes) on GitHub:
https://github.com/skanev/playground/...
The book starts slowly. It might seem a bit basic for the experience programmer, yet I still found it worth to work through the exercises and appreciate the fine points the authors are making. It's worthy to note that the first 2 chapter (out of 5) don't even introduce state. They just elaborate a lot on functions and lists. Chapter 3 becomes more interesting, as state and environments are introduced.
The real gem lies in the final two chapters. Chapter 4 covers interpretation. It starts with writing a rudimentary Scheme interpreter (in Scheme) and continues with two modifications - a lazy version and a non-deterministic version (an interpreter that performs backtracking). The chapter concludes with a logical programming language akin to Prolog. Chapter 5 goes into compilation. First it explores a register machine simulator and afterwards it implements a Scheme evaluator in that register machine using the primitive instructions. The final step is writing a compiler that compiles Scheme code to primitive instructions.
The cherry on the pie is the last three exercises. First you have to compile your Scheme interpreter to the register machine simulator. Afterwards, you have to implement the evaluator in C (based on the one you wrote for the register machine) and provide with the necessary runtime operations (which mostly means memory and garbage collection). Finally, you modify the compiler to generate C code and compile the interpreter, resulting to a Scheme implementation on C.
Apart from fun, the material is a great introduction to a wide variety of topics. If you just want to have a sense about computer science, this is a great book. While it won't go into more advanced topics (such as various compiler optimizations, parsing or advanced data structures), it does a great job of wetting your appetite and giving you and overview. Plus, I cannot state that again - it is so much fun to read and do the exercises.
It took me quite a while to read. I've been wanting to complete it for ages. I started seriously in March 2012 with a study group. We managed to keep up to nearly the end of chapter 3, after which I continued on my own. Out of the time since, I've spent 19 weeks in total on reading and doing exercises. I have my solutions (and various other notes) on GitHub:
https://github.com/skanev/playground/...
September 5, 2021
This is a gorgeous book.
It's a famous book within its field, and for years I put off reading it, assuming it would be difficult, technical, and esoteric. I opened it up one day, and discovered that it's just marvelous, full of glorious ideas, beautifully explained. I quickly inhaled the first quarter or so of the book, and later went back and read a few other large chunks. I look forward with anticipation to the right time to read the remainder.
It's a famous book within its field, and for years I put off reading it, assuming it would be difficult, technical, and esoteric. I opened it up one day, and discovered that it's just marvelous, full of glorious ideas, beautifully explained. I quickly inhaled the first quarter or so of the book, and later went back and read a few other large chunks. I look forward with anticipation to the right time to read the remainder.
December 9, 2007
I read this on the advice of Dr. Eiselt, Dean (at that time) of the College of Computing, after asking him via email "alright, I'm taking classes and whatnot, but I want the Stygian deep; I want to go down as far as I can; I want and need to read those books which have shaped the great computer scientists before me, the real thing." Having probed the shelves of computer science and mathematics since, I remain convinced he could have given no better advice to a precocious freshman. Used for several decades at MIT, this second edition is more than thorough enough for an introduction to computer science anywhere. Taught using the Scheme system (with its close bindings to the type-free λ-calculus), this canonical work covers register machines, logic programming, nondeterministic evaluation, the relations of recursion to iteration, and a wealth of carefully-woven-in jewels from number theory and discrete mathematics. Every programmer thinking himself the real deal owes it to himself to read through this grand work, epic in scope and breathtaking in sudden illuminations.
March 10, 2013
A work of art. SICP will make you a better programmer in the same way that reading Dostoevsky will make you a better writer.
April 19, 2008
If you are a programmer or are majoring in computers in college in any shape, form, or fashion, read this book. Let me reiterate: If you're a programmer and you don't read this book you're worthless. If you're a sys admin, and you write with scripting languages to do administrative tasks, and you don't read this book, you're worthless. If you program for websites using javascript, ajax, .NET, etc., and you don't read this book, you're worthless.
July 14, 2010
Nearly a decade ago when I first started college as a wide eyed computer science student, this book instilled a deep passion for programming into me. To this day, I can pick up and reread any section of this book and that passion is reinvigorated. There have been volumes written about the brilliance and beauty of this book by people smarter than me. Every bit of this praise is deserved, and I do not need to add to that chorus. I would instead like to mention a different facet of what makes this book so great. This book is fun, this book makes the art of programming fun.
My favorite fiction books are by far and away the Harry Potter books. I do not find the prose of these books all that great, the action isn't entirely amazing, and the neither the characters nor the plot are particularly special. So what makes the Harry Potter books so great? I think it is the way J.K. Rowling's describes magic, and the world that is built up around magic. She puts you in the shoes of these characters, and captures how awesome it would be to be able to do magic.
Abelson and Sussman do the same thing with SICP, but the magic is real. Anyone can pick up this book and a Scheme interpreter and do great and magical things. This book made the University of Minnesota my Hogwarts, and I cherish it for that.
I must now lay one heavy critism upon this book, though really not on the book itself, but rather the context in which it is generally used. This book is not appropriate for introductory computer science courses. I was a teaching assistant for eight semesters for the introductory computer science course at the University of Minnesota that uses this book. Over that time, I went from thinking this book was perfect for this course, to strongly thinking this book was perfect, to a gradual realization that this book is not very good at all for the course.
I spent a not insignificant amount time studing is cognative learning theory while in graduate school. What I learned from literature in that field paired with my own observations are what lead me to eventually realize this book is not appropriate for an introductory course. A certain segment of people are motivated by the abstract, and learn from general prinicples. I think this book is perfect for these people. Professors tend to disproportionately be motivated in this fashion, and I think this accounts for popularity of this book.
This is not a majority of people however, this is not even a majority of students who graduate with Computer Science degrees. A python or ruby book focused on practical, real world examples and examples that have a graphical or tactile component in some way would do a vastly better job motivating computer science for the typical student.
I think a lot of professors do not realize this. More distributingly though, there are many professors who realize this but continue to advocate this book because they feel it weeds out the people that cannot cut it in computer science. This is a profoundly wrong and chases a lot of people away from the field who would have a lot to add once they left the confines of acedamia and it self selecting focus on the abstractly motivated. If acemdemia did not filter and select in this manner, I think you would see more diverse population of top tier programmers. I think you would see more programmers with social skills, programmers with less arrogance. This in turn would help the whole community. Asking for help would be less stigmatized, "not developed here" would be less of a problem. Standards bodies developing specifications would likely have more individuals who focus on the practical implicaitons.
I have however strayed wildly into the arena of complete speculation. What I am trying to say ultimately is that I think this is a must read book for computer science students, but I think it would be more appropriate for half of a junior level course on programming paradigms than the whole of an introductory course on programming more generally.
My favorite fiction books are by far and away the Harry Potter books. I do not find the prose of these books all that great, the action isn't entirely amazing, and the neither the characters nor the plot are particularly special. So what makes the Harry Potter books so great? I think it is the way J.K. Rowling's describes magic, and the world that is built up around magic. She puts you in the shoes of these characters, and captures how awesome it would be to be able to do magic.
Abelson and Sussman do the same thing with SICP, but the magic is real. Anyone can pick up this book and a Scheme interpreter and do great and magical things. This book made the University of Minnesota my Hogwarts, and I cherish it for that.
I must now lay one heavy critism upon this book, though really not on the book itself, but rather the context in which it is generally used. This book is not appropriate for introductory computer science courses. I was a teaching assistant for eight semesters for the introductory computer science course at the University of Minnesota that uses this book. Over that time, I went from thinking this book was perfect for this course, to strongly thinking this book was perfect, to a gradual realization that this book is not very good at all for the course.
I spent a not insignificant amount time studing is cognative learning theory while in graduate school. What I learned from literature in that field paired with my own observations are what lead me to eventually realize this book is not appropriate for an introductory course. A certain segment of people are motivated by the abstract, and learn from general prinicples. I think this book is perfect for these people. Professors tend to disproportionately be motivated in this fashion, and I think this accounts for popularity of this book.
This is not a majority of people however, this is not even a majority of students who graduate with Computer Science degrees. A python or ruby book focused on practical, real world examples and examples that have a graphical or tactile component in some way would do a vastly better job motivating computer science for the typical student.
I think a lot of professors do not realize this. More distributingly though, there are many professors who realize this but continue to advocate this book because they feel it weeds out the people that cannot cut it in computer science. This is a profoundly wrong and chases a lot of people away from the field who would have a lot to add once they left the confines of acedamia and it self selecting focus on the abstractly motivated. If acemdemia did not filter and select in this manner, I think you would see more diverse population of top tier programmers. I think you would see more programmers with social skills, programmers with less arrogance. This in turn would help the whole community. Asking for help would be less stigmatized, "not developed here" would be less of a problem. Standards bodies developing specifications would likely have more individuals who focus on the practical implicaitons.
I have however strayed wildly into the arena of complete speculation. What I am trying to say ultimately is that I think this is a must read book for computer science students, but I think it would be more appropriate for half of a junior level course on programming paradigms than the whole of an introductory course on programming more generally.
June 28, 2017
It has been more than a decade since I last read this book. I didn't think this was a good book for teaching young people how to become programmers when I first read it and I think it is even less true today. There are two reasons I think this. First off: I think this is a book that people who have forgotten what it was like to learn programming tend to recommend. Usually after falling in with the Lisp crowd and spending a considerable amount of time boring everyone around them by bemoaning the fact that "nobody loves Lisp, and by the way, all the good parts of other languages stole from Lisp". Nobody I know started with material like SICP -- they wrote programs, ran into unknown problems and then were motivated to hit the books before hammering out more code.
Which brings us to my second reason: today kids don't hit the books. They hit Stack Exchange to look for solutions they can cut and paste, and have attention spans that makes the MTV generation look like a bunch of stoic philosophers having their two hour afternoon nap. A five second ad on youtube makes their heads nearly explode. This book will be a hard sell.
People learn to program because they want to write software. Not read books. At least not at first. Sure, there is a tiny minority for whom this book will be the best thing since cat videos on youtube, but those are the people you see cornering some poor sod at a party and boring them to tears.
If you want to teach people how to write software you have to start by accepting they want to write software that does stuff in the real world. And for that you need a far more pragmatic approach. This book comes later.
Which brings us to my second reason: today kids don't hit the books. They hit Stack Exchange to look for solutions they can cut and paste, and have attention spans that makes the MTV generation look like a bunch of stoic philosophers having their two hour afternoon nap. A five second ad on youtube makes their heads nearly explode. This book will be a hard sell.
People learn to program because they want to write software. Not read books. At least not at first. Sure, there is a tiny minority for whom this book will be the best thing since cat videos on youtube, but those are the people you see cornering some poor sod at a party and boring them to tears.
If you want to teach people how to write software you have to start by accepting they want to write software that does stuff in the real world. And for that you need a far more pragmatic approach. This book comes later.
April 27, 2016
Imagine two sophomore computer science majors in a dorm room late at night. One of them, possibly under the influence of a recently decriminalized substance, turns to the other and asks, "Have you ever thought about what a computer program is. I mean, have you ever *really* thought about it?"
This book is a good answer to that question. The title is apt, it really is about the structure and interpretation of computer programs. It's an enlightening read, but I write this as somebody who has been programming for twenty years now. It's hard for me to imagine how a novice would react to this sort of book.
This book is a good answer to that question. The title is apt, it really is about the structure and interpretation of computer programs. It's an enlightening read, but I write this as somebody who has been programming for twenty years now. It's hard for me to imagine how a novice would react to this sort of book.
July 10, 2014
In an ideal world, everybody learns Scheme as their first programming language and knows recursion, lambda, closure and multi-paradigm programming as his/her first step to programming. The software of that world would be more efficient, more manageable, more straightforward, more readable and contains less bugs. Unfortunately, this does not apply to most working engineers, including me.
Brian Harvey [link] is right. This is one of the best books ever written in computer science. It uses a narrative structure to explore the formalism for the foundation of computer programming languages. It amazes me how the book can be done in such a beautiful way that reading the book does not feel like reading a textbook at all. The Berkeley videos at YouTube makes the lectures freely available on the web, which are really helpful for reading this book.
The book is a wonderful exposure of the fundamentals of functional programming way of thinking, providing complete implementation of all the algorithms in Scheme. And the authors explain all the details of the algorithms, the challenges, the effort, a little bit of the history and the solution. Nothing is hided from the reader, and everything seems to be so beautifully simple. This book demonstrates a style of combining narrative and theoretical development in a book. As the book goes on, more and more and the technical details are revealed and in the end everything just makes sense.
I feel lucky that I read the book. Even though I was not lucky enough to read it as a college freshman.
Brian Harvey [link] is right. This is one of the best books ever written in computer science. It uses a narrative structure to explore the formalism for the foundation of computer programming languages. It amazes me how the book can be done in such a beautiful way that reading the book does not feel like reading a textbook at all. The Berkeley videos at YouTube makes the lectures freely available on the web, which are really helpful for reading this book.
The book is a wonderful exposure of the fundamentals of functional programming way of thinking, providing complete implementation of all the algorithms in Scheme. And the authors explain all the details of the algorithms, the challenges, the effort, a little bit of the history and the solution. Nothing is hided from the reader, and everything seems to be so beautifully simple. This book demonstrates a style of combining narrative and theoretical development in a book. As the book goes on, more and more and the technical details are revealed and in the end everything just makes sense.
I feel lucky that I read the book. Even though I was not lucky enough to read it as a college freshman.
abandoned
August 24, 2015Twenty hours of video lecture by Abelson and Sussman are available through MIT Open CourseWare, though it is worth noting that these classes used the first edition of the textbook.
October 8, 2010
One of the most inspiring computer books I ever read. Brilliantly written, it almost makes you want to read it like a "normal" book. The AI course I took only required to read a few parts of it, but I continued reading this book instead of other things I was supposed to read. (I gave it credits for the A I actually got. :))
It's not just about LISP, really. It teaches you about a powerful, expressive tool (LISP) but it goes beyond simple syntax and shows you how to actually phrase the problem correctly in order to solve it in the easiest, most elegant way. I loved programming more after reading this book.
It's not just about LISP, really. It teaches you about a powerful, expressive tool (LISP) but it goes beyond simple syntax and shows you how to actually phrase the problem correctly in order to solve it in the easiest, most elegant way. I loved programming more after reading this book.
November 8, 2017
Downloadable PDF version here:
https://github.com/sarabander/sicp-pd...
May 27, 2022
<đang cập nhật>
Cuốn này tớ đọc lướt từ tháng 1. Mà do đọc lướt nên không làm bài tập. Rất nhiều các review khác tin rằng đây là một tội lớn và chắc là thế. Ý tưởng của tác giả đến với tớ rất mơ hồ.
Lý do review 4 sao ko phải do thiếu sót gì của tác giả mà phần nhiều là tớ ko chạy một dòng Scheme/Lisp nào cả nên bỏ lỡ rất nhiều những kiến thức ở đây.
Một lượng kha khá Toán được học và ôn tập như phương pháp Newton để ước lượng căn bậc 2. Nhắc lại phương pháp Euler để tìm UCLN. Lý thuyết của Lamé và Fermat. Số phức được áp dụng để mô tả data-directed programming. Một số từ vựng TA về Toán mà tớ ko biết "linear combination, polynomial, rational function and trigonometric function" là những thứ sẽ được đọc thêm.
Về lập trình tớ học được khái niệm Higher order procedure mà sau này đc áp dụng ở rất nhiều nơi như HOF hay HOC. Khái niệm về lamda có vẻ giống anonymous function. Tìm giá trị của phương trình bằng phương thức half-interval. Closure đc đề cập ngay ở dữ liệu phức tạp. Cấu trúc dữ liệu "pair" đc giới thiệu để xây dựng 1 cấu trúc phức tạp hơn "list".
Có một câu mà tớ thấy phản ảnh triết lý "single source of truth": It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
Trong chương 2, tớ đc thấy biến đổi dữ liệu từ dạng list sang dạng binary tree. Tớ sẽ muốn tự triển khai dạng dữ liệu này sau khi đọc xong. Chương cũng đề cập đến module hóa code và cách thức dùng data direct programming tránh naming conflicts. Ngoài ra "message passing" là phương pháp hay khác đc sử dụng nhiều trong chương 3 mà tớ sẽ muốn được nghiên cứu sâu hơn.
Chương 3 tập trung nói về oop mà ở đây từ hay đc dùng là assignment. Oop mặc dù với khả năng module hóa cao nhờ các object lại gặp phải vấn đề rất lớn về sự phức tạp khi object biến đổi. Sự phức tạp này tăng gấp bội khi ta sử dụng đa nhiệm cùng oop. Cũng từ đây tớ nhận ra sự dễ hiểu của fp khi i/o nhất quán nhưng với lập trình hiện đại, ko thể tránh khỏi việc biến đổi state (thường là object). Về xử lý đồng thời là một thách thức lớn với oop mà một phương pháp đc đề cập đến ở đây là "serialization". Khái niệm "stream" - chia nhỏ dữ liệu lớn có gì đó tương đồng với Promise mà t học trong js. T ko tưởng đc sự phức tạp lớn đến đâu khi áp dụng stream cho state để xử lý đồng thời.
Chương 4 phát triển ý tưởng ngôn ngữ lập trình cần phù hợp với vấn đề mà nó giải quyết. Từ đó giúp ta suy nghĩ tốt hơn về vấn đề phải đối mặt. Trên ý tưởng này, chương dạy cách xây dựng "evaluator" cho một ngôn ngữ. Tới thời điểm này Lisp đc sử dụng khác đi cho công việc quản lý database.
Cuốn này tớ đọc lướt từ tháng 1. Mà do đọc lướt nên không làm bài tập. Rất nhiều các review khác tin rằng đây là một tội lớn và chắc là thế. Ý tưởng của tác giả đến với tớ rất mơ hồ.
Lý do review 4 sao ko phải do thiếu sót gì của tác giả mà phần nhiều là tớ ko chạy một dòng Scheme/Lisp nào cả nên bỏ lỡ rất nhiều những kiến thức ở đây.
Một lượng kha khá Toán được học và ôn tập như phương pháp Newton để ước lượng căn bậc 2. Nhắc lại phương pháp Euler để tìm UCLN. Lý thuyết của Lamé và Fermat. Số phức được áp dụng để mô tả data-directed programming. Một số từ vựng TA về Toán mà tớ ko biết "linear combination, polynomial, rational function and trigonometric function" là những thứ sẽ được đọc thêm.
Về lập trình tớ học được khái niệm Higher order procedure mà sau này đc áp dụng ở rất nhiều nơi như HOF hay HOC. Khái niệm về lamda có vẻ giống anonymous function. Tìm giá trị của phương trình bằng phương thức half-interval. Closure đc đề cập ngay ở dữ liệu phức tạp. Cấu trúc dữ liệu "pair" đc giới thiệu để xây dựng 1 cấu trúc phức tạp hơn "list".
Có một câu mà tớ thấy phản ảnh triết lý "single source of truth": It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.
Trong chương 2, tớ đc thấy biến đổi dữ liệu từ dạng list sang dạng binary tree. Tớ sẽ muốn tự triển khai dạng dữ liệu này sau khi đọc xong. Chương cũng đề cập đến module hóa code và cách thức dùng data direct programming tránh naming conflicts. Ngoài ra "message passing" là phương pháp hay khác đc sử dụng nhiều trong chương 3 mà tớ sẽ muốn được nghiên cứu sâu hơn.
Chương 3 tập trung nói về oop mà ở đây từ hay đc dùng là assignment. Oop mặc dù với khả năng module hóa cao nhờ các object lại gặp phải vấn đề rất lớn về sự phức tạp khi object biến đổi. Sự phức tạp này tăng gấp bội khi ta sử dụng đa nhiệm cùng oop. Cũng từ đây tớ nhận ra sự dễ hiểu của fp khi i/o nhất quán nhưng với lập trình hiện đại, ko thể tránh khỏi việc biến đổi state (thường là object). Về xử lý đồng thời là một thách thức lớn với oop mà một phương pháp đc đề cập đến ở đây là "serialization". Khái niệm "stream" - chia nhỏ dữ liệu lớn có gì đó tương đồng với Promise mà t học trong js. T ko tưởng đc sự phức tạp lớn đến đâu khi áp dụng stream cho state để xử lý đồng thời.
Chương 4 phát triển ý tưởng ngôn ngữ lập trình cần phù hợp với vấn đề mà nó giải quyết. Từ đó giúp ta suy nghĩ tốt hơn về vấn đề phải đối mặt. Trên ý tưởng này, chương dạy cách xây dựng "evaluator" cho một ngôn ngữ. Tới thời điểm này Lisp đc sử dụng khác đi cho công việc quản lý database.
July 25, 2022
I used to work at a Startup, quite an interesting life.
I went back to connect the dots of Computing in Business World.
While people can code in many different languages, or new tools, frameworks, might pop up.
Actually, if you understand the foundation stuff, you can comprehend it.
I came across this book, to help me understand, behind the scenes of Computing.
As with the reviews, I do believe this is an important book.
It's going to help you form abstraction. It will give you the foundational base.
Sometimes, I dream that a Computer is layers of the movie Inception.
Too many times, I come across people in industry -- who would say, I program in 10 different languages, and thump their chest. There's nothing wrong with a person who has the ability to program in 10 different languages.
The more important ability -- is to master abstraction, represent problem-sets and solve them. For this, one can use a programming language of his own choice contingent upon the requirements.
If you do not read this book, Yes, I'd reiterate you'd be a garbage programmer. This is regardless of domain or language.
I really appreciated this book. It uses LISP. I think, what matters to a reader is raising the ability of understanding. If you want a summary of it, do send me a message.
I would recommend this to anyone involved with building software, researchers, engineers.
Deus Vult,
Gottfried
I went back to connect the dots of Computing in Business World.
While people can code in many different languages, or new tools, frameworks, might pop up.
Actually, if you understand the foundation stuff, you can comprehend it.
I came across this book, to help me understand, behind the scenes of Computing.
As with the reviews, I do believe this is an important book.
It's going to help you form abstraction. It will give you the foundational base.
Sometimes, I dream that a Computer is layers of the movie Inception.
Too many times, I come across people in industry -- who would say, I program in 10 different languages, and thump their chest. There's nothing wrong with a person who has the ability to program in 10 different languages.
The more important ability -- is to master abstraction, represent problem-sets and solve them. For this, one can use a programming language of his own choice contingent upon the requirements.
If you do not read this book, Yes, I'd reiterate you'd be a garbage programmer. This is regardless of domain or language.
I really appreciated this book. It uses LISP. I think, what matters to a reader is raising the ability of understanding. If you want a summary of it, do send me a message.
I would recommend this to anyone involved with building software, researchers, engineers.
Deus Vult,
Gottfried
October 5, 2019
I can't quite say how good this book is - and as such - you should prob ignore my star -ing. I mostly gave it 4 stars as a response to what I took from it.
I will admit though, I have committed the crime of not doing any of the exercises on my computer, and as such there is a great deal that is lost - from the authors intent, and to my review . The text is mostly a run through of exercises, and that if studied, bring about a understanding of very simple computer programs. It will further, introduce the reader to the logic of software - in a primitive sense - and moving forward, allow the reader to seek out more sophisticated texts and experiences with software.
This certainty aided me in understanding the types of logical issues software developers typically deal with, and how it is they resolve those issues. For this, I give it my rating - as I am most appreciative. Perhaps though I may change my view of the book as I move further into the literature. Who knows
Recommended for :
- those interested in how your computers do things and are willing to start small
- intro level software developers
- those who enjoy logic + puzzles ,and are willing to take a new approach
- mathematicians interested in computers
I will admit though, I have committed the crime of not doing any of the exercises on my computer, and as such there is a great deal that is lost - from the authors intent, and to my review . The text is mostly a run through of exercises, and that if studied, bring about a understanding of very simple computer programs. It will further, introduce the reader to the logic of software - in a primitive sense - and moving forward, allow the reader to seek out more sophisticated texts and experiences with software.
This certainty aided me in understanding the types of logical issues software developers typically deal with, and how it is they resolve those issues. For this, I give it my rating - as I am most appreciative. Perhaps though I may change my view of the book as I move further into the literature. Who knows
Recommended for :
- those interested in how your computers do things and are willing to start small
- intro level software developers
- those who enjoy logic + puzzles ,and are willing to take a new approach
- mathematicians interested in computers
January 26, 2016
Absolutely brilliant! This book really lives up to its reputation, and is still astoundingly relevant considering it's 30 years old.
The first three chapters are an introduction to programming in scheme, but they contain enough interesting material to make them worthwhile even for programmers with experience in Lisp-like languages.
The last two chapters, however, are where the book really shines. Chapter 4 covers a scheme interpreter (written in scheme). The interpreter is then extended to provide lazy and nondeterministic evaluation, and to enable logic programming.
Chapter 5 describes a register machine simulator and a compiler from scheme to machine code that runs on the simulator.
There are tons of exercises in this book, and a remarkable percentage of them is actually interesting and provides deeper understanding of the topics covered in the book. (If you want to check out my (very suboptimal) solutions to most of the exercises you can find them here)
The book is freely available.
The first three chapters are an introduction to programming in scheme, but they contain enough interesting material to make them worthwhile even for programmers with experience in Lisp-like languages.
The last two chapters, however, are where the book really shines. Chapter 4 covers a scheme interpreter (written in scheme). The interpreter is then extended to provide lazy and nondeterministic evaluation, and to enable logic programming.
Chapter 5 describes a register machine simulator and a compiler from scheme to machine code that runs on the simulator.
There are tons of exercises in this book, and a remarkable percentage of them is actually interesting and provides deeper understanding of the topics covered in the book. (If you want to check out my (very suboptimal) solutions to most of the exercises you can find them here)
The book is freely available.
August 19, 2020
It should be the first book every CS student / self-taught programmer reads. The authors presented more approachable and coherent way of teaching how to write computer programs than I had experienced during my formal education. This book covers most of real-life programming challenges you could think of - from pure functional computations, stateful objects, and different levels of abstraction, to lazy evaluation, concurrency, and logic programming.
And the exercises attached to each section are just brilliant, a true cherry on top.
And the exercises attached to each section are just brilliant, a true cherry on top.
July 10, 2013
Если коротко, то просто замечательная книга. Обязательна для прочтения любому программисту.
Начинается от основ построения абстракций с просто отличными примерами, после чего сложность плавно нарастает заканчивается построением модели вычислительной машины с написанием лисп интерпретатора и компилятора под нее, что объясняет множество нюансов работы реальных интерпретаторов и компиляторов, при этом не захламляя повествование деталями.
О переводе: Читал книгу на русском, перевод издательства Добросвет. Это определенно лучший перевод компьютерной литературы который я видел. Все термины аккуратно переведены, никаких англицизмов, кроме того, автор полно��тью понимал, о чем он пишет (что в переводах, к сожалению, встречается не всегда)
Начинается от основ построения абстракций с просто отличными примерами, после чего сложность плавно нарастает заканчивается построением модели вычислительной машины с написанием лисп интерпретатора и компилятора под нее, что объясняет множество нюансов работы реальных интерпретаторов и компиляторов, при этом не захламляя повествование деталями.
О переводе: Читал книгу на русском, перевод издательства Добросвет. Это определенно лучший перевод компьютерной литературы который я видел. Все термины аккуратно переведены, никаких англицизмов, кроме того, автор полно��тью понимал, о чем он пишет (что в переводах, к сожалению, встречается не всегда)
January 13, 2018
The real gems in the book are in the exercises contained within. I enjoyed reading about evaluation models and scope, streams (especially modelling time in streams vs oop), merging streams, and the power of composition (circuit design, constraint calculation programs). After starting this book, I've been trying to capture common patterns I see in my day to day programming and I do believe I've gotten a lot better at it. In any case, my vocabulary for talking about problems has improved and I'm much more mindful of program state.
June 13, 2018
This is one of those books that changes you. If I could save only one computer science book from destruction, this would be it. The book features LISP, but the insights are universal.
I had the fortune to take my first computer science course with Brian Harvey, who helped digest some of the trickier ideas in the book.
It's been 10 years; I have to re-read it.
I had the fortune to take my first computer science course with Brian Harvey, who helped digest some of the trickier ideas in the book.
It's been 10 years; I have to re-read it.
July 25, 2025
DNF -- opted for more recent edition
I was induced to read Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, AKA The Wizard Book by the Hugo-nominated story "If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You", in which it is mentioned. I didn't much like the story, but I will learn from anyone and anything.
I started this last night and decided after 19 pages to upgrade to the JavaScript edition. This, the second edition, was published in 1996, which, while not exactly a past geological age in Computer Science, still rates as ancient history. The advanced age of the text quickly became apparent in two ways.
First, the 1996 edition is built around the programming language LISP, specifically the Scheme dialect. It is evident from the amount of ink the authors spend defending this choice in the very first pages that, even in 1996, this was a not entirely uncontroversial decision. LISP syntax is famously ugly (not a statement I would make at a bar in the presence of LISP devotees, whose opinions of their favorite programming language are not characterized by Dispassionate Rationality). SICP96 is scornful of prettier languages -- see the footnote on page 11 disparaging "syntactic sugar".
Second, although the main ideas of objected-oriented programming (OOP) had been around for a long time already by 1996, it was not until the mid-90s that "object-oriented programming developed as the dominant programming paradigm when programming languages supporting the techniques became widely available" (from Wikipedia). Thus, it is not apparent in the Table of Contents of SICP96.
I started programming seriously in 1973, and have programmed in, probably, dozens of languages. Currently most of my programming is in Mathematica and python. I have done little in LISP (although Mathematica is in many ways philosophically similar). Although I can always take on a new language, the cost in time is high, and it is unlikely LISP will become an important practical language for me.
There is, however, a 2022 edition of SICP: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: JavaScript Edition, and I have decided to read that, instead. I am not fond of JS, but it is at least universally available (it's built into your browser).
Blog review.
I was induced to read Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, AKA The Wizard Book by the Hugo-nominated story "If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You", in which it is mentioned. I didn't much like the story, but I will learn from anyone and anything.
I started this last night and decided after 19 pages to upgrade to the JavaScript edition. This, the second edition, was published in 1996, which, while not exactly a past geological age in Computer Science, still rates as ancient history. The advanced age of the text quickly became apparent in two ways.
First, the 1996 edition is built around the programming language LISP, specifically the Scheme dialect. It is evident from the amount of ink the authors spend defending this choice in the very first pages that, even in 1996, this was a not entirely uncontroversial decision. LISP syntax is famously ugly (not a statement I would make at a bar in the presence of LISP devotees, whose opinions of their favorite programming language are not characterized by Dispassionate Rationality). SICP96 is scornful of prettier languages -- see the footnote on page 11 disparaging "syntactic sugar".
Second, although the main ideas of objected-oriented programming (OOP) had been around for a long time already by 1996, it was not until the mid-90s that "object-oriented programming developed as the dominant programming paradigm when programming languages supporting the techniques became widely available" (from Wikipedia). Thus, it is not apparent in the Table of Contents of SICP96.
I started programming seriously in 1973, and have programmed in, probably, dozens of languages. Currently most of my programming is in Mathematica and python. I have done little in LISP (although Mathematica is in many ways philosophically similar). Although I can always take on a new language, the cost in time is high, and it is unlikely LISP will become an important practical language for me.
There is, however, a 2022 edition of SICP: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: JavaScript Edition, and I have decided to read that, instead. I am not fond of JS, but it is at least universally available (it's built into your browser).
Blog review.
September 21, 2016
This is a famous book which most of the people related to programming know about, since it often shows up in various "top N cs/programming" books lists.
Naturally, I decided to give it a shot, started and dropped it a couple of times.
Eventually, I've got some free time and spent about a year with this book, trying to solve as many exercises as possible.
That was certainly not an easy road, but I'm glad I've taken it.
The amount of things I've learned from this book is astonishing, and some concepts were so wild that I would literally grab my head and ask: "Is this real world?".
Every chapter was brilliant in it's own way, but chapters 4-5 are probably my favourite. Hard to believe how much you can build using such a minimalistic tool.
This book taught me some things that weren't explicitly mentioned on the pages.
First, if I haven't implemented something, I probably don't understand it. Interpreter had always been a mystery until I actually implemented a rudimentary analogue.
Second, testing in dynamic languages is must have. I had some real quality time debugging through multiple layers of interpretation only to discover that I actually had to return a list of one element instead of the element itself.
Or, maybe just use statically typed language that eliminates problems like these at compile time. Despite my fascination with Lisp as dynamic and homoiconic language the pain was too real.
The book is not without its cons, of course (no pun intended). One thing I disliked was introducing code and exercises that use functions not yet introduced. Maybe it was designed to be a pure thought process, but I can't say it was interesting. Another one is that some of the exercises didn't have appropriate tools to try them out, for example multithreading exercises in chapter 3.
For everyone considering working through it I would suggest to concentrate on exercises, they reinforce the material very well. Also, I found it helpful to manually type provided code from the book to understand it better.
My solutions to the exercises: https://github.com/nevermourn/sicp-so...
Naturally, I decided to give it a shot, started and dropped it a couple of times.
Eventually, I've got some free time and spent about a year with this book, trying to solve as many exercises as possible.
That was certainly not an easy road, but I'm glad I've taken it.
The amount of things I've learned from this book is astonishing, and some concepts were so wild that I would literally grab my head and ask: "Is this real world?".
Every chapter was brilliant in it's own way, but chapters 4-5 are probably my favourite. Hard to believe how much you can build using such a minimalistic tool.
This book taught me some things that weren't explicitly mentioned on the pages.
First, if I haven't implemented something, I probably don't understand it. Interpreter had always been a mystery until I actually implemented a rudimentary analogue.
Second, testing in dynamic languages is must have. I had some real quality time debugging through multiple layers of interpretation only to discover that I actually had to return a list of one element instead of the element itself.
Or, maybe just use statically typed language that eliminates problems like these at compile time. Despite my fascination with Lisp as dynamic and homoiconic language the pain was too real.
The book is not without its cons, of course (no pun intended). One thing I disliked was introducing code and exercises that use functions not yet introduced. Maybe it was designed to be a pure thought process, but I can't say it was interesting. Another one is that some of the exercises didn't have appropriate tools to try them out, for example multithreading exercises in chapter 3.
For everyone considering working through it I would suggest to concentrate on exercises, they reinforce the material very well. Also, I found it helpful to manually type provided code from the book to understand it better.
My solutions to the exercises: https://github.com/nevermourn/sicp-so...
December 17, 2012
Not too shabby, the first four chapters are a superb account of programming from an academic viewpoint. I can now see why people rave about this book so much, the examples were very well thought out and showed the true power and flexibility of scheme. I did not enjoy reading the last chapter though which was a mire of the technical details of interpreters and compilers, this part of the book took away from the beautiful presentation of the general high level ideas of how computer programs should be structured and instead provided dull concrete examples of how to implement a interpreter and compiler - neither of which I cared for.
Lisp is often seen as being quite a mythical language and while powerful and interesting to program in - it is esoteric. Many modern languages which have been obviously inspired by lisp sacrifice being slightly more specific for increased usability and this is why I would say that this book is not really suitable for a first course in programming. It is a much better follow up once you have a better understanding of programming paradigms.
On the whole if you have a vague interest in programming languages and their semantics this book is definitely worth checking out, it's approach is very different from many other books. It does suffer slightly from being written in 1985 as it is not aware of modern language developments but the ideas still hold strong.
Lisp is often seen as being quite a mythical language and while powerful and interesting to program in - it is esoteric. Many modern languages which have been obviously inspired by lisp sacrifice being slightly more specific for increased usability and this is why I would say that this book is not really suitable for a first course in programming. It is a much better follow up once you have a better understanding of programming paradigms.
On the whole if you have a vague interest in programming languages and their semantics this book is definitely worth checking out, it's approach is very different from many other books. It does suffer slightly from being written in 1985 as it is not aware of modern language developments but the ideas still hold strong.
May 6, 2020
The first few chapters of this book will make you think that it is a Scheme manual. However, do not be fooled, the book is much deeper than that. After the first few chapters, introduce you to Scheme, it discusses important differences between different paradigms of evaluation: applicative order, lazy evaluation, and data streams. The book also covers logic programming and non-deterministic programming languages. From there, you will explore the inner workings of interpreters. Finally, the book goes on to show how to build a simple compiler and explains how compilers are different from the interpreters.
The beauty of the book is that to go through all of those topics you only need to know Scheme. The authors do not digress into different technologies: even the assembly language in this book is built using Scheme.
The beauty of the book is that to go through all of those topics you only need to know Scheme. The authors do not digress into different technologies: even the assembly language in this book is built using Scheme.
October 7, 2014
This is without discussion one of the books every software engineer should read.
It does a great job at deconstructing common principles of computation and basic element of computer languages, and shows how they can be implemented as extensions of a much simpler language. Things that other languages take as granted (such as dynamic dispatch of methods) are analyzed in detail I haven't seen anywhere else in one place. That all said, the book is still quite approachable and it should be easy to understand for anyone with elementary knowledge of computing and mathemtaics.
The only downside is that the style is a bit dry, which makes the book less enjoyable if you already know most of the concepts e.g. from university lectures or from other books. But even so it is a worth read.
It does a great job at deconstructing common principles of computation and basic element of computer languages, and shows how they can be implemented as extensions of a much simpler language. Things that other languages take as granted (such as dynamic dispatch of methods) are analyzed in detail I haven't seen anywhere else in one place. That all said, the book is still quite approachable and it should be easy to understand for anyone with elementary knowledge of computing and mathemtaics.
The only downside is that the style is a bit dry, which makes the book less enjoyable if you already know most of the concepts e.g. from university lectures or from other books. But even so it is a worth read.
August 6, 2008
If I could go back and tell myself where to start with computer science, this would have been it.
It may be a little tough for beginners, but I feel that if you know enough to get through the first chapter or so, you will be set.
It may be a little tough for beginners, but I feel that if you know enough to get through the first chapter or so, you will be set.
April 10, 2013
A classic book to understand programming. Loved reading it and also the lectures on ocw.mit.edu!
Would also recommend Randy Bryant's "Computer Systems" and "How to Design Programs" by Matthias Felleisen, et.al,
Would also recommend Randy Bryant's "Computer Systems" and "How to Design Programs" by Matthias Felleisen, et.al,
March 24, 2022
9 years ago I added this book on my to-read shelf, according to Goodreads. Genius, as expected. Probably my favourite computing book of all time.
December 2, 2020
Absolutely awesome book.
I think, some real-life experience with various programming languages and paradigms can help you understand a lot, but here authors pack huge amount of info and years of real-life experience into (moderately) small package, highlighting differences in perspectives, how you see the code and it's execution, when applying different approaches.
I mostly scanned through two last chapters, sadly, not understanding them in such details as I wanted to, but that's my fault.
I think, some real-life experience with various programming languages and paradigms can help you understand a lot, but here authors pack huge amount of info and years of real-life experience into (moderately) small package, highlighting differences in perspectives, how you see the code and it's execution, when applying different approaches.
I mostly scanned through two last chapters, sadly, not understanding them in such details as I wanted to, but that's my fault.
December 31, 2014
This book is more than just a technical manual. It teaches foundations of lasting value in an elegant machine language that has been around in one form or another since the 1950s.
Whilst the material gets impressively advanced just a couple of chapters in, I'd also recommend this book to friends who've never written code before. The language used is built from very simple components and the exercises are progressive. This could be followed by a curious novice in much the same way that a coffee table book of crosswords or logic puzzles could be followed recreationally.. this is the kind of book that makes computing simple and fresh again even for experienced professionals, teaching some deep topics as it does so.
Whilst the material gets impressively advanced just a couple of chapters in, I'd also recommend this book to friends who've never written code before. The language used is built from very simple components and the exercises are progressive. This could be followed by a curious novice in much the same way that a coffee table book of crosswords or logic puzzles could be followed recreationally.. this is the kind of book that makes computing simple and fresh again even for experienced professionals, teaching some deep topics as it does so.
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