
Peter Norvig's review of SICP - andreyf
http://www.amazon.com/review/R403HR4VL71K8?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
======
ionfish
My brother is starting to learn a bit of programming, and was looking for
books to read. I suggested SICP, so he went to Amazon and immediately picked
up on the fact that almost all of the review scores were 1 or 5.

Interestingly, he didn't bother reading the favourable reviews--just the
unfavourable ones. His argument was that in reading the unfavourable reviews
he could better pick up what the book's strengths were: what did it teach that
many people weren't ready to learn?

~~~
albertcardona
I wish my peers were like your brother.

------
kaiser
SICP really changed the way I look at computer science. So enlightening: data
and commands are interchangeable etc. I was surprised to see so many bad
reviews on amazon. Although flipping through them, it seems they just don't
'want' to understand the book :(

~~~
gruseom
_it seems they just don't 'want' to understand the book :(_

I think it's more that some brains are wired for that kind of abstraction and
some are not. Those who love the book are mostly the ones whose are.

A similar (if not the same) phenomenon is that there are far more mediocre
programmers than good ones... a simple fact which determines nearly everything
about the software industry.

~~~
maxwell
_some brains are wired for that kind of abstraction_

In my experience if someone can't program it's not becuase they have the wrong
static structure, it's that they're unwilling to dynamically metaprogram their
thought processes and fundamentally reshape their mental models.

 _far more mediocre programmers than good ones_

Same goes for actors and boxers and cops. This seems, almost tautologically,
true of any industry. Why is this meme so prevalent?

~~~
gruseom
_In my experience if someone can't program it's not becuase they have the
wrong static structure, it's that they're unwilling to dynamically metaprogram
their thought processes and fundamentally reshape their mental models._

Either way, the point is the same: 90% of people (if not 99%) are averse to
the kind of abstraction we're talking about. I have no idea how many are
unable and how many merely unwilling; I'm not even sure the distinction
matters or how you go about deciding it. (By the way, where did you get that
phraseology? It sounds like NLP.)

 _Same goes for actors and boxers and cops. This seems, almost tautologically,
true of any industry. Why is this meme so prevalent?_

It's because the demand for programs vastly exceeds the supply of good
programmers, which is the fundamental theorem of software economics (at least
in our lifetime) and skews everything about the industry. Obviously the
mediocre outnumber the competent at any activity, but that usually doesn't
become the dominant fact about that activity. For example, there are many more
bad musicians than good ones, but the demand for music doesn't vastly exceed
the supply of good musicians. If it did, Lord knows what sorts of contraptions
people would call instruments and mass-distribute. "We can't have pianos
around here - how will we hire 100 musicians to play them in the future? And
if guitars are so great, how come they're not more popular? Better to be a
blubby-music-box shop like everybody else! Our clients expect it!"

~~~
maxwell
_the kind of abstraction we're talking about_

You know, I wonder to what extent it's more the peripheral hassles than the
actual abstractions. There's no way in hell I'd be a programmer if it meant
working with punch cards; it'd be above my irritation threshold. There might
be a lot of people out there who would enjoy programming, but installing and
configuring a compiler and editor, for instance, are simply too
frustrating/boring to them.

There weren't many photographers when you had to develop your own film. (I
think I'm paraphrasing a Steve Yegge essay... I'd look it up if I weren't on
my iPhone at a volleyball tournament :p )

 _where did you get that phraseology? Sounds like NLP._

That and general semantics I believe. I haven't read much of the primary works
in either (yet), but picked up some of the concepts/terms from Robert Anton
Wilson.

------
martythemaniak
I recently came across SICP's amazon page and based on this and Paul Graham's
reviews, I decided to buy it and work my way through it. It arrived yesterday
and now I am about halfway through Chapter 1. So far its a pretty good review
and I've gotten a much clearer understanding of some things.

I finished school almost 2 years ago, so a lot of things I found confusing and
odd about Scheme when I first used it in school have had time to settle in my
mind (lambdas, first-class functions, etc). Hopefully it will be worth my
time.

~~~
justnoise
I started working through my copy about a month ago and have no regrets about
spending a lot of time with it (still have 1 chapter to go). While I might not
have felt very enthusiastic about working through all the exercises, they're
VERY helpful and a central part of the book.

I found that SICP helped hone my skills in finding elegant solutions to
certain problems and improved my coding style. On the downside, I switched
back to C++ tonight and found myself putting parenthesis in all the wrong
places for the first hour. It's a small price to pay.

Enjoy!

------
siegler
Norvig is head of research at Google and the author of a leading book on AI.

~~~
rw
Leading != canonical.

~~~
kaens
What's the canonical book? Norvig has, IIRC, written two widely-appreciated
books on AI.

~~~
rw
I wasn't clear. Norvig has written canonical books on AI, but they are not
leading edge.

------
awt
Why is this book so expensive? The cheapest used copy on amazon is ~$60.00...

~~~
jgfoot
Particularly when it is available online for free at
<http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html>

~~~
aneesh
Particularly _because_ it is available online for free.

For a normal book, you have cheapstake buyers, and then buyers who will pay a
premium for a nicer book (hardcover, newer, etc). Now take the cheapstake
buyers out of the market because they're all accessing it online for free.
Economic magic does its thing, and the market price is now much higher.

~~~
seano
The word is cheapskate not cheapstake.

