Re:Hard Books Are Overrated
by zhemao on Wednesday April 23, 2014 @01:59PM
(#7635704)
Just because it is an introductory book doesn't mean it isn't difficult. It was written as the course text for an MIT course which was known to be quite challenging. MIT has since dropped SICP as the required intro course. It is now an elective. I think the book may not be the appropriate difficulty level for a college freshman who has never programmed before. I got a lot out of it by doing the programming exercises after I had a few years of college coursework under my belt. I don't think I would have gotten a lot out of it had I not had that experience.
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It's not even an elective (note its absence here: http://student.mit.edu/catalog/m6a.html). Some grad students who love it teach a portion of it to anyone in the January "Independent Activities Period", and the first ~30 students who sign up and do the problem sets can earn less than half of the credits of the original course.
I.e. tolerated by the department, but no more so, and may well die as those passionate about SICP leave the Institute. Promises to offer it as an elective, especially for all those outside the department who can benefit from it, unlike the new intro courses which intertwingle EE with CS, were empty, and were obviously so at the time.