There are two kinds of programmers: ones who have read SICP, and ones who haven't.

Those who have often smile in secret knowledge that they know better when they hear those who haven't going on and on about "object-orientation," "design patterns," "meta-programming," "closures," and "continuations" as if they are magic.

For those who haven't clicked on the link, SICP stands for Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, by Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman, an introduction to computer science textbook in use since 1981. Here's praise of this book from the guy who wrote the original Mozilla (aka Netscape Navigator):

Jamie Zawinski: If you don't know C++ and want to learn what this whole 'object oriented programming' thing is all about, there is one and only one book you should read first, and that is "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs", by Abelson and Sussman.

Now the good news. Professor Abelson has made available, free under the creative commons license, a complete presentation of the course, given in 1986 for Hewlett-Packard employees.

Now the better news. The lectures, twenty downloads averaging 1.5GB each for a total of almost 22 hours, is also available as a podcast at this URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SICP. Thanks to Max Khesin.

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Posted by Weiqi Gao on November 10, 2005 7:37:04 AM CST #