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I took a one-week SICP course with 5 or 6 other professional programmers last year. It was amazing. I wrote about my personal motivation for doing so here: htt

I took a one-week SICP course with 5 or 6 other professional programmers last year. It was amazing. I wrote about my personal motivation for doing so here: https://amontalenti.com/2018/08/26/sicp-expanding https://amontalenti.com/2018/08/26/sicp-expanding As for an update: SICP was as good as I expected and definitely makes a professional programmer regain some love for the art and magic of computer science. (However, the book is a hard read without a guide. But it's really fun if you alternate between coding and reading, by using a local Racket & DrRacket install.) One can find recorded courses from MIT with the SICP authors on YouTube, so that may be one way to do this from home. Hal Abelson was recently interviewed about the lasting influence of the book in this podcast. It's a good conversation: https://pca.st/wmrdiyvq https://pca.st/wmrdiyvq

methehack 7y ago
You probably know this, but for others reading along, Racket has a #lang sicp language to fully support using Racket to follow along. https://docs.racket-lang.org/sicp-manual/index.html https://docs.racket-lang.org/sicp-manual/index.html
- ryeights 7y ago
  Alternatively, install MIT Scheme (*nix/macOS): https://www.gnu.org/software/mit-scheme/ https://www.gnu.org/software/mit-scheme/
  - neilv 7y ago
    If MIT Scheme runs on your computer, great. IIRC, SICP support was added to DrRacket with the idea that it would be more accessible to new students (runs on more computers, student-oriented IDE that's less-intimidating than something Emacs-ish).
Stormwalker 7y ago
Does it make sense to use Clojure while reading the book?
- armitron 7y ago
  Not a lot, given that Clojure semantics are very different from Lisp semantics.
- pixelmonkey 7y ago
  I actually knew Clojure going into the course and it helped make Scheme easier to pick up, but I think to make the code exercises more straightforward, it's better to use Racket and #lang sicp as someone suggested.
- ephaeton 7y ago
  Yes and no. Maybe use http://www.sicpdistilled.com/ http://www.sicpdistilled.com/ as a guide.
- rymndhng 7y ago
  I started with Clojure but ultimately ended up using scheme. Clojure has built in solutions to some of the things that you’re asked in exercises which I think takes away from the experience. I’d suggest going with a scheme such as racket.
- ahuth 7y ago
  I think it makes sense to use whatever language you want, and the ideas in the book don't only apply to Scheme. I've been working through the book in Javascript - https://github.com/ahuth/sicp/ https://github.com/ahuth/sicp/. Maybe I'm losing something by doing it in JS instead of Scheme, but I'm still learning a lot and having a ton of fun. Wrote a little bit about SICP here: https://ahuth.github.io/articles/the-first-time-sicp-blew-my-mind https://ahuth.github.io/articles/the-first-time-sicp-blew-my....
  - antonvs 7y ago
    I think if a language has decent lambdas - JavaScript qualifies - it'll work for SICP. That said, using Scheme for it will give you a much better appreciation of an underrated language.
- ZephyrP 7y ago
agbell 7y ago
I did that interview! Interestingly enough, in it Hal said javascript was the inheritor of the scheme spirit. I worked through the book using #lang sicp in racket however.
- doorhammer 7y ago
  I listened to that episode recently. Really dig your podcast; always looking forward to new episodes. I really appreciate the semi-esoteric topics while staying lucid and engaging (I think I found the podcast while I was mucking about with idris). Keep it up!
fsloth 7y ago
If working alone, I suggest going off the deep end and implementing the metasyntactic evaluator in any language one likes. You need to figure out how to implement lexing and parsing if this is not familiar to you, but it's not that hard.
theboywho 7y ago
This is awesome, can you go a little bit deeper into how you organized your week? Topics you covered each day and how you devided the book to fit into a 1-week study? I’d love to do this myself with other people! The idea of a "retreat", seeing programming as a hobby is great.
b3b0p 7y ago
Can you please provide your plan and outline to get through it in a week that you used? From my experience if doing all the exercises a chapter a week is still a challenge.

methehack 7y ago

You probably know this, but for others reading along, Racket has a #lang sicp language to fully support using Racket to follow along. https://docs.racket-lang.org/sicp-manual/index.html https://docs.racket-lang.org/sicp-manual/index.html

ryeights 7y ago
Alternatively, install MIT Scheme (*nix/macOS): https://www.gnu.org/software/mit-scheme/ https://www.gnu.org/software/mit-scheme/
- neilv 7y ago
  If MIT Scheme runs on your computer, great. IIRC, SICP support was added to DrRacket with the idea that it would be more accessible to new students (runs on more computers, student-oriented IDE that's less-intimidating than something Emacs-ish).

Stormwalker 7y ago

Does it make sense to use Clojure while reading the book?

armitron 7y ago
Not a lot, given that Clojure semantics are very different from Lisp semantics.
pixelmonkey 7y ago
I actually knew Clojure going into the course and it helped make Scheme easier to pick up, but I think to make the code exercises more straightforward, it's better to use Racket and #lang sicp as someone suggested.
ephaeton 7y ago
Yes and no. Maybe use http://www.sicpdistilled.com/ http://www.sicpdistilled.com/ as a guide.
rymndhng 7y ago
I started with Clojure but ultimately ended up using scheme. Clojure has built in solutions to some of the things that you’re asked in exercises which I think takes away from the experience. I’d suggest going with a scheme such as racket.
ahuth 7y ago
I think it makes sense to use whatever language you want, and the ideas in the book don't only apply to Scheme. I've been working through the book in Javascript - https://github.com/ahuth/sicp/ https://github.com/ahuth/sicp/. Maybe I'm losing something by doing it in JS instead of Scheme, but I'm still learning a lot and having a ton of fun. Wrote a little bit about SICP here: https://ahuth.github.io/articles/the-first-time-sicp-blew-my-mind https://ahuth.github.io/articles/the-first-time-sicp-blew-my....
- antonvs 7y ago
  I think if a language has decent lambdas - JavaScript qualifies - it'll work for SICP. That said, using Scheme for it will give you a much better appreciation of an underrated language.
ZephyrP 7y ago

agbell 7y ago

I did that interview! Interestingly enough, in it Hal said javascript was the inheritor of the scheme spirit. I worked through the book using #lang sicp in racket however.

doorhammer 7y ago
I listened to that episode recently. Really dig your podcast; always looking forward to new episodes. I really appreciate the semi-esoteric topics while staying lucid and engaging (I think I found the podcast while I was mucking about with idris). Keep it up!

fsloth 7y ago

If working alone, I suggest going off the deep end and implementing the metasyntactic evaluator in any language one likes. You need to figure out how to implement lexing and parsing if this is not familiar to you, but it's not that hard.

theboywho 7y ago

This is awesome, can you go a little bit deeper into how you organized your week? Topics you covered each day and how you devided the book to fit into a 1-week study? I’d love to do this myself with other people! The idea of a "retreat", seeing programming as a hobby is great.

b3b0p 7y ago

Can you please provide your plan and outline to get through it in a week that you used? From my experience if doing all the exercises a chapter a week is still a challenge.