Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - 2nd Edition (MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) by Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - 2nd Edition (MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)
Book Review: A great book and a magnificent vocational test
Summary: 5 Stars
SICP is an excellent, perhaps the best, advanced introduction to computer science and programming. It covers topics such as functional abstraction, data abstraction, OOP, program design, constraint programming and logic programming, always from a language design point of view. You will need a decent mathematical background to follow it.If it's such a great textbook, then why half of the reviewers hate it? Elementary: SICP is not just a textbook, it's also a Computer Science aptitude and vocational test. If you read it and like it, then Congratulations! You are a real programmer and computer scientist, with hair on your chest. If you don't like it, then you should be studying something else. Law, mortuary science, whatever, but not CS.
Book Review: This book has very little to do with modern software enginee
Summary: 3 Stars
I would have to agree that this book has very little to do with modern software engineering. While some experience with meta-languages is certainly beneficial, spending an entire semester writing scheme progs is a solid waste of time. C++ and Java have been on a market for a Number of years (c was founded in 81), and all of the potential employers "appreciate" ur knowledge of them. Another point I want to bring is in regard to some previous reviews oversimplifying the transition from meta language to C++. Not only it is not easy, but it is also quite confusing. May be reading C++ in 24 hours gives you the idea that you are a big guy, but believe me, C++ is much more powerful than that. Take a look at The C++ Programming Language by Bjarne Stroustrup is you feel you are ready to face the challenge, but please don't stop your quest at the page X.Book Review: More important then Finnegan's Wake
Summary: 5 Stars
Review the quagmire the reviews, phew! Ok, what is going on with this book? Clarity in a nutshell, to boot!The Book; in 300 years folks will be studying scheme and will be studying scheme right out of this book. However; Graham's, Norvig's and Knunth's books will be as accessible as a horse and carriage on I-95, I-90, I-80, I-40, and "the five."
Why is scheme important and why will scheme last? Simple. Scheme was the first version of "Lisp" to really get "lambda" correct. Scheme's ties to pure mathematics is terse complementing ~sicp~ is dense. Sicp is the most important printed literature to develop from our species in the 20th century. Why is scheme important and why will it last.
Ok, onto the Lisp posse:
Suggest a ~better~ book. Let's write "different." On scheme, Simply Scheme and How to Design Programs rock! Maybe sicp is not for you? Yeah, that does not mean you are not interested in functional programming, and you are not interested in scheme, and you are not interested in pure mathematics. Suggest a different book.
The missing case of the Lisp posse:
Maybe you are interested in C, C++ and interested in functional programming, and maybe you do not find scheme friendly. Try Haskell. And remember that there are other functional languages too: ml, o'caml. Maybe you are not satisfied with a course, a functional programming course, a CS theory course, whatever, that is taught in scheme. Well, get some guts and goto your CS dept's. Dean and demand that the university/college teach Haskell.
I think the coolest version of Lisp I have ever seen is Chaitin's version he cooked up for "~the books~." And Chaitin
rocks!
~peace yo!~
Book Review: solid waste .... of time
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm not sure who the target audience is (besides the poorMIT undergrads who are force to sift through this [junk]), but
having taught (as an assistant to a professor) a lower-level
computer science class (one not dealing with Scheme, thankfully)
I have asked many freshmen abou their thoughts on this book and
the class taught out of it.
*ALL*hated it. Some PhD students, whose specialty was programming
languages, tolerated it, while other PhD students also hated it.
So there you have it. If you are into programming languages like
Scheme, this text is for you to salivate over Hal Abelson's
self fornication (how else would you call the senseless drivel
he wrote?). Otherwise, stay away. Beginning CS students will come
away frustrated, as virtually every conventional algorithm is
NOT implementable in scheme, and those who aren't beginners
and have no inherent interest in Scheme will simply find the
book a waste of time.
Book Review: Brilliant Book for the Gifted Beginning and Advanced Persons
Summary: 5 Stars
This book might be a good read if you are at the beginning level or have at least ten years of computer experience. Don't read it in an intermediate state. Also it is the type of book that is a great enjoyment for people with idle brainpower. To be a successful professional in the computer field it is not necessary. It maybe even misleading. Here you have to manage solid day-to-day work and not feel like an inventor of a new language.Prerequisites for the book are some interest in philosophy and linguistic and a slight remembrance of a few years of college math.
It contains lots of small intellectual gems. Complete explanations of a language interpreter and a compiler are more down to earth.