Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

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 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 show more 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.

I studied literature as an undergrad and information management as a grad student. Since I am now a computer programmer I thought I should fill in some of the gaps in my computer science education starting with this book, which is the standard textbook for introductory courses at all the big CS programs.

The best book about the Scheme language, and therefore a very good introduction for any other functional language.
I mean a language where a function is like any other data type, that you can create and manipulate on the fly.

The book guided me into programming life. Recommend it to anyone that want to take another turn in your life.

A must read for anyone trying to understand computer science and not just computer engineering.