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Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman with Julie Sussman

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Founder connections

  • Patrick CollisonRead; part of an influential cluster
    Named among programming books that collectively shaped him in the 2018 Knowledge Project interview. Edition not identified.
    Source
  • Paul GrahamEssay discussion
    In Hackers and Painters, Graham singles out the book’s statement about writing programs for human readers to support his view that source code should explain itself.
    Source

Summary

Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman, with Julie Sussman, use Scheme to teach the ideas behind computer programs. The book moves from procedures and recursion to data abstraction, state, interpreters and register-machine models. Its examples and exercises show how programs can express complex ideas through smaller parts, and how a language’s evaluator determines what those programs mean.

  • SourceStructure and Interpretation of Computer Programs — MIT Press · Second-edition paperback details; ISBN 9780262510875
  • SourceSICP second edition — MIT-hosted licensed text · Title/license pages; Contents and Preface to the First Edition

Why read it Our view

Useful for founders who want a deeper understanding of software. Work through the examples to see how abstraction controls complexity, how a program’s parts fit together and how an interpreter gives those parts meaning.