Watching Abelson give that lecture(on video I mean, first lecture of SICP IIRC) made a lot of things click in my head as a neophyte programmer. Even after one l

Watching Abelson give that lecture(on video I mean, first lecture of SICP IIRC) made a lot of things click in my head as a neophyte programmer. Even after one lecture my understanding of the nature of computation had grown immensely. He and Sussman are great at distilling and explaining abstract concepts in a clear and precise way.