SICP: o fim de uma era

Also... HtDP (How to Design Programs) is a good follow-on to SICP. Oh... and I think we can't mention SICP without referencing this (relatively recent) video about why MIT moved from Scheme to Python for intro classes: ▶ this video

In a sense this has been true of conventional programs for a while now. Gerald Sussman discusses the idea when talking about why MIT switched their introductory programming course from Scheme to Python: < ▶ this video >.

Not necessarily as relevant, programming has changed a lot since SICP came out. Sussman says so himself - ▶ this video

Related, Gerald Jay Sussman explains why they pulled the plug on MIT 6001 (SICP) here: ▶ this video To me, part of the problem is that devs continuously change tech stacks without poking at the layers underneath. So only a few become proficient enough to focus on the abstractions. Similarly, now many designers are not more than technicians of graphic design tools.

Don't miss Sussman's talk linked from the post: ▶ this video This stuff resonates with me deeply. The reality of the modern computing world is a clusterfuck that no single person understands, especially because, like Sussman said, parts are entirely secret/proprietary anyway. Therefore I think an engineer should be skilled in a) removing the unnecessary bits of that clusterfuck that are not necessary to their problem and b) getting stuff done without having a complete understanding of the whole system. (b) sounds scary as fuck, but I think that's the (sad?) reality we live in in the software and hardware world. Embrace the cluster; embrace the fuck.

My understanding is that the authors of SICP themselves wanted to update the curriculum - not just a language change, but to cover something at a higher level of abstraction. See: ▶ this video