Comment by nycticorax
3 months ago
I love SICP, but I will say this: there's a certain class of "great" textbooks that sometimes get recommended by experts, that aren't actually that great for someone learning something for the first time. They get the reputation as being "great" because they are great for people that already have a good basic grasp of the material: They are precise and pithy, and they contain insights that are deep and useful, but hard to appreciate if this is your first encounter with the material. (Kleppner & Kolenkow would be a good example of a freshman physics textbook in this category.) With all due respect, I would put SICP in this category. Which, of course, is a noble and important category, but maybe not the most important category if you're just starting out on a topic.
Discussing these textbooks - and more generally discussing education - also seems to reveal a lot of weaknesses in how people think about the world. There's a tendency to think that because something is difficult it's worthwhile. There's a tendency to ignore opportunity costs, or consider alternative efforts. There's a tendency to frame on cool concepts that are intellectually fun and more pleasing to the ego as "real learning," when most CS graduates are likely going to be running into much more trouble on less glamorous stuff like navigating frameworks.
I'm definitely coming from my own perspective, having initially been self-taught, and then finding myself with the opportunity to go back and academically study CS at a well ranked university. Supposedly, this would fill all of the "holes" in my knowledge (you see this sentiment a lot). I found the classes fun, and I did well in them. But I was also constantly trying to find usefulness in them when it came to work I actually was doing, and didn't find any. Though I don't regret doing it as an interesting life experience, it was honestly a waste of time and money when it comes to my CS skills.
Which isn't to say that SICP is useless for everyone, or that no one will get value out of it. But reading the article in the link, as well as all of the replies, it's telling that people are writing so many paragraphs but aren't able to say anything concretely. Even multiple paragraphs accusing people of looking for excuses not to do it - but not providing any concrete examples of its usefulness. This should set off red flags.
Yes, there are people who are completely clueless about core concepts. Though SICP is obviously not the only place to learn about those concepts. Further, most people hanging out in places where those concepts are discussed and are considering whether or not to do SICP in their free time likely have been exposed to the concepts already (and might already have a pretty good grasp on them).
There always is a bit of posturing and ego involved when some of these things come up, and they often lead to people giving very poor advice.