> I think it's worth pointing out why the author's of SICP themselves acknowledge why it was phased out. Gerald Sussman made some remarks about this during an

> I think it's worth pointing out why the author's of SICP themselves acknowledge why it was phased out. Gerald Sussman made some remarks about this during an unrelated roundtable discussion at the 2009 International Lisp Conference: https://cemerick.com/2009/03/24/why-mit-now-uses-python-instead-of-scheme-for-its-undergraduate-cs-program/ https://cemerick.com/2009/03/24/why-mit-now-uses-python-inst... Note that Sussman did not actually state why the committee decided to change the curriculum. The remarks about studying software empirically were his opinion. I was in the audience, and while Sussman seemed sincere in his remarks, I still have a hard time believing he was serious. How can anyone state, without irony or sarcasm, that we should just give up, and start treating software programs, where all the "laws" are not only known, but made up, by us, as if they were natural systems, where our only way to understand them was to start "poking" (I may be wrong, but from what I remember this was the actual word Sussman used) at it and observing the results? If you give up before you have even started on modularity, composition, etc., and start treating every program as if it was a million line COBOL hairball, the hairball part is just going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. My takeaway from Sussman's remarks was the opposite of his message - the ideas about applying mathematical principles to software design in SICP have become even more relevant as a way to prevent software hairballs. I make good money doing the "poking," but if you are going to teach that, stop pretending that you are teaching a science at the university level - this kind of shrug-and-give-up empirical programming is to computer science and engineering what a trade college auto mechanic education is to a mechanical engineering degree.