MIT Lisp lecture from '86. wow.

The whole series of SICP lectures is online:<p><a href="http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/" rel="nofollow">http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lec...</a><p>They're pretty awesome.

Gerry Sussman... Good piece of trivia: In addition to creating the class, he taught the last (ever) offering of 6.001 last term at MIT.<p>Another piece of trivia: Hal Abelson, the co-creator, was one of the big guys being 6.001's replacement (now in Python).

I took 6.001 in Spring '87. I loved it, aside from the slow computers in the lab. I pulled an all-nighter on a Saturday for a problem set not due until Thursday so as to avoid the crowds.<p>After the class was over I didn't use Scheme for another 10 years, but did everything in C. Scheme was just too slow in 1987. Both the language implementations and the hardware have come a long way. I use Scheme all the time now, and there are numerous popular languages, notably PHP and Ruby, that are slower than Scheme today.

It surprises me that people didn't know about these lectures already (of course I realize there's always a first time). They are considered classic and anyone interested in lisp (and programming in general) should watch them.

Imagine being able to re-watch your lectures online when studying for an exam...that would be great.<p>It is fantastic that such lectures are being put online for the use of anyone.

I was surprised to see the equivalent of a powerpoint in '86. It's weird to see the same ideas that we have now, but implemented in an older technology. Kinda like when you watch the mother of all demos.<p>I can see why old-timers think nothing's changed in the past couple decades sometimes.

Nice lecture... I am sending it on to my students.<p>But did anyone get a load of that old lisp machine? You could just feel how sluggish it must have been :-)<p>20 years on and things are much snappier! Thanks Intel and AMD!

The book that goes with this course, <i>Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs</i>, is excellent. It's available online:<p><a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html" rel="nofollow">http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html</a>

All the Intro to CS classes start the same: the teacher writes COMPUTER SCIENCE in the board and then says 'this is not a science and it is not about computers' and crosses them out.

Whatever happened to the Java years of 6.001?<p>Anyone here take them?<p>I still look back fondly on how '001 blew my mind lecture after lecture.