Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs explained

Italic Title:	force
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Author:	Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, Julie Sussman
Subject:	Computer science
Genre:	Textbook
Publisher:	MIT Press
Pub Date:	1984 (1st ed.), 1996 (2nd ed.), 2022 (JavaScript ed.)
Pages:	657
Isbn:	0-262-51087-1
Isbn Note:	(2nd ed.)
Congress:	QA76.6 .A255 1996

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) is a computer science textbook by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman with Julie Sussman. It is known as the "Wizard Book" in hacker culture.^[1] It teaches fundamental principles of computer programming, including recursion, abstraction, modularity, and programming language design and implementation.

MIT Press published the first edition in 1984, and the second edition in 1996. It was formerly used as the textbook for MIT's introductory course in computer science. SICP focuses on discovering general patterns for solving specific problems, and building software systems that make use of those patterns.^[2]

MIT Press published the JavaScript edition in 2022.^[3]

Content

The book describes computer science concepts using Scheme, a dialect of Lisp. It also uses a virtual register machine and assembler to implement Lisp interpreters and compilers.

Topics in the books are:

1. The Elements of Programming
2. Procedures and the Processes They Generate
3. Formulating Abstractions with Higher-Order Procedures

1. Introduction to Data Abstraction
2. Hierarchical Data and the Closure Property
3. Symbolic Data
4. Multiple Representations for Abstract Data
5. Systems with Generic Operations

1. Assignment and Local State
2. The Environment Model of Evaluation
3. Modeling with Mutable Data
4. Concurrency: Time Is of the Essence
5. Streams

Chapter 4: Metalinguistic Abstraction

1. The Metacircular Evaluator
2. Variations on a Scheme – Lazy Evaluation
3. Variations on a Scheme – Nondeterministic Computing
4. Logic Programming

1. Designing Register Machines
2. A Register-Machine Simulator
3. Storage Allocation and Garbage Collection
4. The Explicit-Control Evaluator
5. Compilation

Characters

Several fictional characters appear in the book:

• Alyssa P. Hacker, a Lisp hacker
• Ben Bitdiddle
• Cy D. Fect, a "reformed C programmer"
• Eva Lu Ator
• Lem E. Tweakit
• Louis Reasoner, a loose reasoner

License

The book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.^[4]

Coursework

The book was used as the textbook for MIT's former introductory programming course, 6.001,^[5] from fall 1984 through its last semester, in fall 2007. Other schools also made use of the book as a course textbook.^[6]

Reception

Byte recommended SICP in 1986 "for professional programmers who are really interested in their profession". The magazine said that the book was not easy to read, but that it would expose experienced programmers to both old and new topics.^[7]

Influence

SICP has been influential in computer science education, and several later books have been inspired by its style.

• Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics (SICM), another book that uses Scheme as an instructional element, by Gerald Jay Sussman and Jack Wisdom
• Software Design for Flexibility, by Chris Hanson and Gerald Jay Sussman
• How to Design Programs (HtDP), which intends to be a more accessible book for introductory Computer Science, and to address perceived incongruities in SICP
• Essentials of Programming Languages (EoPL), a book for Programming Languages courses

See also

• also known as The Dragon Book

External links

• • Video lectures
• Book compiled from TeX source
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. Interactive Version

Notes and References

1. Book: Raymond, Eric S. . The New hacker's dictionary . Steele . Guy . 1991 . Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press . Internet Archive . 978-0-262-68069-1.
2. .
3. Book: MIT Press . 2022 . Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs: JavaScript Edition . 9780262543231.
4. Web site: SICP . MIT Press . 2007-11-11 . 2017-12-26 . https://web.archive.org/web/20171226134539/http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/ . dead . .
5. Web site: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; 6.001 Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs . Spring 2005 . OpenCourseWare . MIT . 2020-06-21.
6. Web site: Universities and Colleges Using SICP . MIT Press . 2022-03-30 . 2022-04-23 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220423072605/https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/adopt-list.html . dead .
7. Book: Kilov, Haim. Byte Magazine Volume 11 Number 12: Knowledge Representation. November 1986. English . 70 .