Harold Abelson

Bits are Bit. Even if they are transmitted through electrons in copper wires or light in fiber optical cables or via modulation in radio waves. All of these carry bits and run the world. This book covers the intersection between technology, society, the justice system, policies, and politics. It is highly approachable and helps you appreciate technology, not just from a technical standpoint but from a societal standpoint. I really appreciate the concern for fellow human beings put forefront show more in this book. It opens the reader's mind to care a lot about the political process and be aware that any technology we design is going to have a wide societal impact. show less

This is a comprehensive book that would have been fantastic had I not learned half of it in university, and the other half from functional programming. Most of the problems in the book feel like they're desperately grasping for a type-system, and needing to be very clever in order to get around their lack of such. It's not a bad read by any means, but I didn't get nearly as much out of it as people promised I would.

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 show more 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 show less

A programmer who has not understood this material (either by reading this book, or in some other way) has missed some of the most fundamentally beautiful ideas in programming.