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Comment by freyr | Hacker News Reader

Peter Norvig (Director of Research at Google, among other things) also left a review, with his explanation of all the negative reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R403HR4VL71K8/ref=cm_cr_dp_titl...

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It seems to me that Peter Norvig is attacking personally the readers who didn't like SICP (in the lines of "if you didn't like SICP, you're just not a creative person").

Also, he is flawed when saying that only about 1 person out of 50 should like this book (the proportion of people who have "this strange way of thinking that makes a programmer"), since the largest part of the people exposed to SICP are programmers, or at the very least interested in computer science.

Disclaimer: I have lots of respect for Norvig and think his PAIP is awesome.

Try reading it again.

His analogy is that some people want to know exactly how their car works, but most people just want to drive. I don't think that's an attack on everybody who's not an automotive engineer.

Also, he is flawed when saying that only about 1 person out of 50 should like this book ... since the largest part of the people exposed to SICP are programmers

He acknowledges that by saying "a big part of the explanation is that the audience is self-selected." But he also seems to be acknowledging that not every programmer needs or wants the depth that SICP provides.

The passage in question, as neither of you seem to have read it closely:

> Donald Knuth says he wrote his books for "the one person in 50 who has this strange way of thinking that makes a programmer". I think the most amazing thing about SICP is that there are so FEW people who hate it: if Knuth were right, then only 1 out of 50 people would be giving this 5 stars, instead of about 25 out of 50. Now, a big part of the explanation is that the audience is self-selected, and is not a representative sample. But I think part of it is because Sussman and Abelson have succeeded grandly in communicating "this strange way of thinking" to (some but not all) people who otherwise would never get there.

I read it closely the first time, thanks. If you'd like to directly address something I said, feel free.

Although, I only said two things, (1) he acknowledges the audience is self-selected (direct quote from the review), and (2) some people aren't willing to put in the work to gain that level of familiarity with the subject (directly supported by his analogy in the second paragraph).

Does that contradict anything in the review? You seem to be fixated on something else there that S4M and I aren't discussing. If you'd like to draw attention to that, again feel free.

It seems like you may have read too much into his review.

Sometimes people do just want to learn how to drive a car, not how to assemble one from scratch or whatever. If you're expecting the former and you get the latter, it's understandable why you'd be frustrated. There's nothing wrong with that and Norvig doesn't say there is.

I do not understand your criticism of the 1 in 50 quote from Knuth. He's not saying only 1 in 50 are suited for programmers (and therefore everyone who isn't is wrong).

He's saying the set of people who think like that is larger than 1 in 50, as evidenced by 25 5-star reviews. The implication is that if you think like Knuth, you'll enjoy SICP, which doesn't seem that far from the truth, considering how esoteric Knuth and SICP may be for some people.

I'll add my support for this, in general, since there are so many dissenters:

Norvig doesn't do anything to address ones that think the book is poorly written or gives bad advice (for modern times) or confusing in style, for instance, just claims the 1-stars aren't looking for the same information as the 5-stars.

This amounts to "the book is perfect. your review tells us who you are." which is an extremely-limited-use stance when it comes to critiquing, and simply insulting to anyone who wants what it's offering but doesn't like the presentation.

I read the first three of five chapters of SICP (along with the MIT lecture videos) in high school and loved it, but I totally disagree with Norvig's car analogy. I did not care for SICP because it told me how computers or even computer programs ran. I cared about it because it made me think differently. It is a book for how to think about these classes of problems, not a book on the inner workings of complex programs.

At least, that's what I got out of it the most. I've always been on the theoretical side of things.

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