Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Cover of the second edition
Author(s)	Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, Julie Sussman
Subject(s)	Computer programming
Genre(s)	Textbook
Publisher	MIT Press
Publication date	1984 (1st ed.), 1996 (2nd ed.)
ISBN	ISBN 0-262-51087-1 (2nd ed.)
LC Classification	QA76.6 .A255 1996

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) is a textbook published in 1984 about general computer programming concepts from MIT Press written by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professors Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman, with Julie Sussman. It was formerly used as the textbook of MIT introductory programming class and at other schools.

Using a dialect of the Lisp programming language known as Scheme, the book explains core computer science concepts, including abstraction, recursion, interpreters and metalinguistic abstraction, and teaches modular programming.

The program also introduces a practical implementation of the register machine concept, defining and developing an assembler for such a construct, which is used as a virtual machine for the implementation of interpreters and compilers in the book, and as a testbed for illustrating the implementation and effect of modifications to the evaluation mechanism. Working Scheme systems based on the design described in this book are quite common student projects.

Characters

The book uses some fictional characters repeatedly:

• Ben Bitdiddle. He considerably predates this class, having been created by Steve Ward for use in problem sets for its predecessor, 6.031, in the 1970s. He has since appeared in a large number of other locations, including other classes at MIT and other institutions.^{[citation needed]}
• Eva Lu Ator: the evaluator
• Louis Reasoner: the loose reasoner
• Alyssa P. Hacker: a Lisp hacker
• Cy D. Fect: A "reformed C programmer."
• Lem E. Tweakit: an irate user of Alyssa's interval arithmetic, enters p. 96.

License

The book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Coursework

The book was used as the textbook of MIT's old introductory programming class, 6.001. This class has been replaced by 6.01, which uses Python. Other schools also made use of the book as a course textbook. The second edition (ISBN 0-262-51087-1) appeared in 1996. It is widely considered a classic text in computer science.

Influence

SICP has been influential in computer science education, and a number of later books have been inspired by its style.

• Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics (SICM), another book by Gerald Jay Sussman that uses Scheme
• How to Design Programs (HtDP), which intends to be a more accessible book for introductory Computer Science, and to address perceived incongruities in SICP
• Essentials of Programming Languages (EoPL) is a book for Programming Languages courses
• Lisp in Small Pieces (LiSP), a book full of Scheme interpreters and compilers

Further reading

• A critique of Abelson and Sussman or Why calculating is better than scheming (PDF), UK: Kent .
• The Structure and Interpretation of the Computer Science Curriculum (PDF), Brown , a critical view of SICP and rationale for HtDP

External links

• "SICP", MIT Press (official site), MIT Press  (including the full text in HTML).
• Abelson; Sussman (July 1986), SICP Lectures (videos), MIT .
• "6.001", SICP (official site), MIT, Spring 2007  (an MIT course that goes by the same name as the book).
• SICP, MIT, Spring 2005 .
• SICP (PDF) 
  • Vandyke, Neil (ed.), SICP (TeXinfo) .
• SICP (PDF) (optimized for on-screen reading), Word press .