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Lecture 1A: Overview and Introduction to Lisp

MIT OpenCourseWare · lecture · Watch on YouTube

Functional programmingUniversity lectures & coursesSoftware architecture & design

What it is

The first lecture of MIT's 6.001 (SICP) with Abelson and Sussman, giving an overview of the course and an introduction to Lisp. It argues that computer science is about managing complexity and abstraction, not computers.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN people recommend the SICP lectures as a deeper, livelier route into the book and a formative course even for seasoned programmers.

  • 10 people recommended it
  • 10 different months
  • 5 strong recommendations
  • first 2019, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “First watch the SICP series”

    First step to learning Lisp and fundamental concepts deeply

    floathub, 2020-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: How to rediscover the joy of programming?”

  2. “Highly recommend the SICP lectures”

    Shows expressiveness from very few operators

    k00b, 2020-12 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: What new programming languages did you learn in 2020?”

  3. “I watched and cannot recommend it enough, even for seasoned programmers”

    Full MIT course, valuable even for seasoned programmers

    augusto-moura, 2021-03 · Strong recommendation · in “Not Lisp again (2009)”

  4. “an excellent course that is still very much relevant with very high production quality circa 1986.”

    Excellent, still relevant course taught by the original SICP authors

    wiseleo, 2022-12 · Strong recommendation · in “24/7 SICP 1986 lectures stream”

  5. “It changed my outook on programming by pi degrees”

    Best lecture series, especially the streams section

    lab11, 2023-01 · Strong recommendation · in “Ask HN: What's the best lecture series you've ever seen?”

  6. “I found them a bit easier to watch than reading the book”

    Original course videos, easier than reading the book

    chrisa, 2019-10 · Recommendation · in “Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (1996) [pdf]”

  7. “the first 10 minutes of the introductory SICP lecture contains a livelier presentation of the idea in the quote”

    Lively presentation of the idea in the first ten minutes

    abiro, 2019-12 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: Which of our ideas about computation could survive a thousand years?”

  8. “I would suggest either watching SICP video lecs[0] or reading the book.”

    Gives a feel for the magic of Lisp

    lymitshn, 2020-03 · Recommendation · in “How I became a better programmer (2017)”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: sicp, scheme, lisp, abstraction, mit, recursion

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