SICP Adventures

I was inspired by Uncle Bob’s talk “The Failure of State” to pick up the book Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP). I was excited to find that it was as riveting as Uncle Bob described it. Alone, the forward and prefaces are worth your time.

It was from the forward by Alan J. Perlis that I found one of the best explanations of why I have always been enchanted by software:

The source of the exhilaration associated with computer programming is the continual unfolding within the mind and on the computer of mechanisms expressed as programs and the explosion of perception they generate. If art interprets our dreams, the computer executes them in the guise of programs!

I am excited to start my adventure with SICP and would love hear about your experiences with it. Please leave a comment below.

And for anyone out there that has started (or will be starting) their own SICP Adventure I created a Vargant script on github that will get you up and running quickly with a linux vm, MIT Scheme and Emacs.