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‎javascript/latexContent.js‎

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<MATTER>
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<NAME>
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Preface to the Second Edition
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</NAME>
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<SECTION>
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<NAME>
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Preface to the Second Edition
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</NAME>
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<EPIGRAPH>
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Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it
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is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to
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always see it as a soap bubble?
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<ATTRIBUTION>
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<INDEX>Perlis, Alan J.</INDEX>
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<AUTHOR>Alan J. Perlis</AUTHOR>
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</ATTRIBUTION>
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</EPIGRAPH>
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<TEXT><PDF_ONLY>\noindent</PDF_ONLY>
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The material in this book has been the basis of MIT's entry-level
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computer science subject since 1980. We had been teaching this
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material for four years when the first edition was published, and
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twelve more years have elapsed until the appearance of this second
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edition. We are pleased that our work has been widely adopted and
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incorporated into other texts. We have seen our students take the
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ideas and programs in this book and build them in as the core of new
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computer systems and languages. In literal realization of an ancient
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Talmudic pun, our students have become our builders. We are lucky to
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have such capable students and such accomplished builders.
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</TEXT>
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<TEXT>
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In preparing this edition, we have incorporated hundreds of
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clarifications suggested by our own teaching experience and the
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comments of colleagues at MIT and elsewhere. We have redesigned
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most of the major programming systems in the book, including
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the generic-arithmetic system, the interpreters, the register-machine
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simulator, and the compiler; and we have rewritten all the program
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examples to ensure that any Scheme implementation conforming to
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the IEEE Scheme standard (IEEE 1990) will be able to run the code.
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</TEXT>
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<TEXT>
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This edition emphasizes several new themes. The most important
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of these is the central role played by different approaches to
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dealing with time in computational models: objects with state,
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concurrent programming, functional programming, lazy evaluation,
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and nondeterministic programming. We have included new sections on
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concurrency and nondeterminism, and we have tried to integrate this
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theme throughout the book.
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</TEXT>
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<TEXT>
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The first edition of the book closely followed the syllabus of our MIT
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one-semester subject. With all the new material in the second
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edition, it will not be possible to cover everything in a single
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semester, so the instructor will have to pick and choose. In our own
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teaching, we sometimes skip the section on logic programming
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(section<SPACE/><REF NAME="sec:logic-programming"/>),
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we have students use the
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register-machine simulator but we do not cover its implementation
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(section<SPACE/><REF NAME="sec:simulator"/>),
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and we give only a cursory overview of
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the compiler
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(section<SPACE/><REF NAME="sec:compilation"/>).
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Even so, this is still
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an intense course. Some instructors may wish to cover only the first
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three or four chapters, leaving the other material for subsequent
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courses.
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</TEXT>
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<TEXT>
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The World Wide Web site <LINK address="https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/index.html">of MIT Press</LINK>
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provides support for users of this book.
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This includes programs from the book,
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sample programming assignments, supplementary materials,
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and downloadable implementations of the Scheme dialect of Lisp.
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</TEXT>
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<SIGNATURE>
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<ATTRIBUTION>
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<AUTHOR>Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman</AUTHOR>
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</ATTRIBUTION>
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</SIGNATURE>
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</SECTION>
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<SPLITINLINE>
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<JAVASCRIPT>
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<PDF_ONLY>\newpage</PDF_ONLY>
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<SECTION>
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<NAME>Preface to the First Edition</NAME>
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</SECTION>
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</JAVASCRIPT>
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<SCHEME>
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<NAME>Preface to the First Edition</NAME>
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</SCHEME>
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</SPLITINLINE>
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<EPIGRAPH>
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A computer is like a violin. You can imagine a novice trying first a
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phonograph and then a violin. The latter, he says, sounds terrible.
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That is the argument we have heard from our humanists and most of our
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computer scientists. Computer programs are good, they say, for
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particular purposes, but they aren't flexible. Neither is a violin,
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or a typewriter, until you learn how to use it.
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<ATTRIBUTION>
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<AUTHOR>Marvin Minsky</AUTHOR>
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<INDEX>Minsky, Marvin Lee</INDEX>
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<TITLE><QUOTE>Why Programming Is a Good
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Medium for Expressing Poorly-Understood and Sloppily-Formulated
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Ideas</QUOTE></TITLE>
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</ATTRIBUTION>
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</EPIGRAPH>
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<TEXT><PDF_ONLY>\noindent</PDF_ONLY>
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<QUOTE>The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs</QUOTE> is the
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entry-level subject in computer science at the Massachusetts Institute
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of Technology. It is required of all students at MIT who major
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in electrical engineering or in computer science, as one-fourth of the
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<QUOTE>common core curriculum,</QUOTE> which also includes two subjects on
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circuits and linear systems and a subject on the design of digital
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systems. We have been involved in the development of this subject
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since 1978, and we have taught this material in its present form since
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the fall of 1980 to between 600 and 700 students each year. Most of
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these students have had little or no prior formal training in
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computation, although many have played with computers a bit and a few
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have had extensive programming or hardware-design experience.
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</TEXT>
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<TEXT>
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Our design of this introductory computer-science subject reflects two
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major concerns. First, we want to establish the idea that a computer
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language is not just a way of getting a computer to perform operations
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but rather that it is a novel formal medium for expressing ideas about
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methodology. Thus, programs must be written for people to read, and
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only incidentally for machines to execute. Second, we believe that
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the essential material to be addressed by a subject at this level is
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not the syntax of particular programming-language constructs, nor
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clever algorithms for computing particular functions efficiently, nor
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even the mathematical analysis of algorithms and the foundations of
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computing, but rather the techniques used to control the intellectual
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complexity of large software systems.
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</TEXT>
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<TEXT>
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Our goal is that students who complete this subject should have a good
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feel for the elements of style and the aesthetics of programming.
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They should have command of the major techniques for controlling
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complexity in a large system. They should be capable of reading a
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50-page-long program, if it is written in an exemplary style. They
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should know what not to read, and what they need not understand at any
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moment. They should feel secure about modifying a program, retaining
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the spirit and style of the original author.
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</TEXT>
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<TEXT>
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These skills are by no means unique to computer programming. The
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techniques we teach and draw upon are common to all of engineering
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design. We control complexity by building abstractions that hide
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details when appropriate. We control complexity by establishing
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conventional interfaces that enable us to construct systems by
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combining standard, well-understood pieces in a <QUOTE>mix and match</QUOTE> way.
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We control complexity by establishing new languages for describing a
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design, each of which emphasizes particular aspects of the design and
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deemphasizes others.
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</TEXT>
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<TEXT>
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Underlying our approach to this subject is our conviction that
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<QUOTE>computer science</QUOTE> is not a science and that its significance has
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little to do with computers. The computer revolution is a revolution
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in the way we think and in the way we express what we think. The
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essence of this change is the emergence of what might best be called
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<EM>procedural epistemology</EM><EMDASH/>the study of the structure of
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knowledge from an imperative point of view, as opposed to the more
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declarative point of view taken by classical mathematical subjects.
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Mathematics provides a framework for dealing precisely with notions of
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<QUOTE>what is.</QUOTE> Computation provides a framework for dealing precisely
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with notions of <QUOTE>how to.</QUOTE>
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</TEXT>
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<TEXT>
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In teaching our material we use a dialect of the programming language
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Lisp. We never formally teach the language, because we don't have to.
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We just use it, and students pick it up in a few days. This is one
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great advantage of Lisp-like languages: They have very few ways of
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forming compound expressions, and almost no syntactic structure. All
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of the formal properties can be covered in an hour, like the rules of
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chess. After a short time we forget about syntactic details of the
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language (because there are none) and get on with the real
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issues<EMDASH/>figuring out what we want to compute, how we will decompose
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problems into manageable parts, and how we will work on the parts.
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Another advantage of Lisp is that it supports (but does not enforce)
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more of the large-scale strategies for modular decomposition of
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programs than any other language we know. We can make procedural and
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data abstractions, we can use higher-order functions to capture common
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patterns of usage, we can model local state using assignment and data
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mutation, we can link parts of a program with streams and delayed
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evaluation, and we can easily implement embedded languages. All of
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this is embedded in an interactive environment with excellent support
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for incremental program design, construction, testing, and debugging.
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We thank all the generations of Lisp wizards, starting with John
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McCarthy, who have fashioned a fine tool of unprecedented power and
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elegance.
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</TEXT>
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<TEXT>
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Scheme, the dialect of Lisp that we use, is an attempt to bring
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together the power and elegance of Lisp and Algol. From Lisp we take
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the metalinguistic power that derives from the simple syntax, the
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uniform representation of programs as data objects, and the
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garbage-collected heap-allocated data. From Algol we take lexical
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scoping and block structure, which are gifts from the pioneers of
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programming-language design who were on the Algol committee. We wish
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to cite John Reynolds and Peter Landin for their insights into the
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relationship of Church's lambda calculus to the structure of
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programming languages. We also recognize our debt to the
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mathematicians who scouted out this territory decades before computers
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appeared on the scene. These pioneers include Alonzo Church, Barkley
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Rosser, Stephen Kleene, and Haskell Curry.
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</TEXT>
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<SIGNATURE>
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<ATTRIBUTION>
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<AUTHOR>Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman</AUTHOR>
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</ATTRIBUTION>
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</SIGNATURE>
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</MATTER>
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