If you want to work through SICP, you can use MIT Scheme, but another option is to use Racket or DrRacket, with this add-on package: https://docs.racket-lang.org/sicp-manual/
I think we should only be recommending MIT Scheme. Everything else has got too much going on and can become distracting, for the purposes of education.
In reality you get lectures from individuals that became professors because they are great at politics/research but not at teaching (very different skill).
If you even get them and not their 25 year old assistants.
And this is apparently super common even in ivy league universities as Youtube lessons have shown me over and over.
This is why it's so awesome watching David Malan teach Harvard CS50 (free YouTube videos). His presence, knowledge and overall enthusiasm for the topic are outstanding. If more of my college courses had that level, I'd have been far more engaged. When I look back, I realize that I paid a TON of money to have some professors basically "phone it in", yet expect me to basically teach myself their subject of expertise. "Build a compiler". Yes, I can (and did) learn that from a book. I imagine if I had someone truly engaging the room during those sessions, I'd have come away with FAR more appreciation. That could have even led to a different career path.
The JS version of the book (I still bought it when it came out) is just weird. It has you writing JS in a non-idiomatic way that you'd never see (nor should you be the person introducing) in the industry. SICP teaches a very LISP-y way of thinking through problems. It's not that you CAN'T apply these tactics in other languages... they're just far more "at home" in Scheme/DrRacket/heck... even Clojure.
I'll add another recommendation for Scheme. The concepts in SICP map very well into Scheme, whereas I can only imagine them being awkward and non-idiomatic in JS. There's lots of passing around first class functions and use of recursion.
One of the two professors (Dr. Sussman) that give the lectures in this series is a co-creator of Scheme.
I have both books. Scheme for sure! Env setup can be a bit of an issue but it is doable. Regarding it, I remember having some weird issues with MIT Scheme on a modern computer, but Racket/DrRacket works well.
These 1986 lectures are the definitive SICP experience — the Hal and Gerry show at its peak. The presentation quality holds up remarkably well, and seeing the metacircular evaluator built live is something no textbook can fully capture. For those who find the book dense, these lectures provide the pacing and intuition that make the abstractions click.
I was just about to ask just that question?
Thank you, SM
In reality you get lectures from individuals that became professors because they are great at politics/research but not at teaching (very different skill).
If you even get them and not their 25 year old assistants.
And this is apparently super common even in ivy league universities as Youtube lessons have shown me over and over.
I think you have the “even” backwards. Elite research first universities have this problem more than teaching-first, low research output programs.
Is there any way to clean them up?
One of the two professors (Dr. Sussman) that give the lectures in this series is a co-creator of Scheme.