If folks are interested in having a person to talk to while doing SICP, we're doing it in the iPad app we released last Thursday. We were going to do a Show HN, but hey, HN's already talking SICP!<p>Understudy: <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/understudy/id782635884" rel="nofollow">https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/understudy/id782635884</a><p>The setup is basically like private music lessons. We pair you with a somewhat more advanced student also doing SICP. The deal is to<p>(1) Work on SICP by yourself during the week<p>(2) Once a week, discuss the material with your more advanced partner. The app builds in a videochat + whiteboard communication tool (you can see it in the app screenshots).<p>(3) When you get about a month in, also start discussing with someone who is just starting out. When you help that person understand, it very much improves your own understanding.<p>Basically, it gives you good discussion with people who are genuinely interested in SICP.<p>We've been running it in beta for a while – see <a href="https://twitter.com/understudyapp" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/understudyapp</a> .
For a gentle introduction to functional programming and Scheme/Racket, check out <a href="https://class.coursera.org/programdesign-002" rel="nofollow">https://class.coursera.org/programdesign-002</a> and the How to Design Programs book <a href="http://htdp.org/" rel="nofollow">http://htdp.org/</a><p>These can be good precursors before starting on SICP. I have to say, though, that I have never felt comfortable with LISP's syntax. The parentheses and the prefix notation are convenient for the parser, not the programmer. Pyret <a href="http://www.pyret.org/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.pyret.org/index.html</a> might be a step in the right direction.
For anyone interested, Paul Snyder and I are running a SICP study group going on right now. We also have online and in person meetings in Philadelphia and King of Prussia. We are currently doing one minor section every month, which averages out to roughly one homework question every 3 days.<p>For anyone interested we will help you get setup and started, no prior programming needed.<p>We are running section 1.3 this month, so there is not much to catch up! Also, anyone who wants to work it their own pace is welcome too!<p><a href="http://www.meetup.com/Clojadelphia/events/172933722/" rel="nofollow">http://www.meetup.com/Clojadelphia/events/172933722/</a><p>Paul hasn't put up the info for the 1.3 online session yet, join the Clojadelphia group to get updates when he does.
When I first read the title/url I got excited. I remember on the thoughbot podcast, Ben Orenstein spoke about going to Cape Cod with some people to go through SICP in a nice but isolated setting. I thought something like that was being organized on a larger scale...<p>Still a very good article, with great arguments for why the book is a must-read. Great links too. I would also include something easy like Realm of Racket (or Land of Lisp) as a good first-date before shacking up with SICP.<p>Hacker Retreat does look great though. Wish I had the free time to give it a try.
Author here - happy to answer questions and address feedback. I suspect I didn't explain Lisp-in-Lisp as well as I need to, but maybe it's enough to get non-Lispers intrigued. :)
Does anyone know of anything like SICP, but that integrates more type theory into it? Like an SICP for OCaml or Haskell?<p>Something challenging yet doable for a determined independent student.
Totally on a tangent, but I'd love to see a 'Hacker Retrete' style session targeted at hackers / devs that have jobs.<p>Something on the order of 1 or 2 weeks in length, super compressed that gives working devs a chance to learn something new or explore something outside of their normal job. I'd love to do something like this, particularly in an exotic location, but against a set amount of time that doesn't require me to quit my job.
Our group, the LA Computer Science Reading Group has been interested in doing SICP for a while. For those in Los Angeles who are interested in joining us, here's the link to the meetup group: <a href="http://csrg.org" rel="nofollow">http://csrg.org</a>
I have a very specific question about starting out on SICP. A few months back, I worked through roughly half the exercises in the book. I got stuck on 2.2.4 (a picture language)[1] and was unable to run any of the examples or test any of the exercises.<p>Is there some prerequisite library for these exercises? Or am I missing the point and these are not actually intended to be run?<p>1. <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-15.html#%_sec_2.2.4" rel="nofollow">http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-15.html...</a>
The article recommends mit-scheme. Anyone know how to get that working as a Sublime Text build? From what I can tell, to invoke mit-scheme on a file, you redirect stdin, a la:<p><pre><code> mit-scheme < foo.scm
</code></pre>
This doesn't play so nicely with the ST2 build system, which seems to assume the input will be simply be a filename arg. E.g., it's assuming you can do:<p><pre><code> mit-scheme foo.scm</code></pre>
Shameless plug - I'm making an interactive version of SICP where you can edit and run the code in your browser.<p>xuanji.appspot.com/isicp/
Has anyone ever tried to read through SICP on a Kindle or other e-reader?<p>Or would it be pointless to read through the book without a REPL/command line next to it?
if you're in London and looking for someone to share in your SICP adventure, check out the London SICP study group: <a href="http://www.meetup.com/London-SICP-Study-Group/" rel="nofollow">http://www.meetup.com/London-SICP-Study-Group/</a> we just simmered down for the time being, but parallel groups are planning to start soon.