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SICP is a masterpiece. I took the old MIT 6.001 in Spring 1986 where we burned through the entire book in about 14 sleepless weeks. Sussman was the lecturer and Rod Brooks was my recitation instructor. I was like 19 years old at the time and it was the most intellectually beautiful thing I had ever experienced. I ended up acing the course and went on to get a PhD in CS. I've never read a better book on programming.

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I wish that had been my experience with it. I did well in the class, but I didn't learn nearly as much as I should have. To be clear, that was entirely my fault, not the class's; I was lazy and got away with a lot of shortcuts. And even when I learned real stuff, I shrugged it off as "not actually how you build programs in the real world; can't I have for loop?" (so, sooo dumb). After years in the industry and a slow, organic rediscovery of all the great concepts I should have taken to heart as a college freshman, I cracked open SICP and said, "holy shit, this is what I was being taught?" 6.001 really was incredible, had I only been smart enough to see it. Eat your veggies, kids.

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