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Ask HN: Is SICP/HtDP still worth reading in 2023? Any alternatives?

I'm a self-taught programmer but I recently realized I need to really understand how to write programs elegantly. GPT-4 was a huge motivation for this because whenever I asked it to rewrite the code like a professional Python programmer, it would come up with amazing things. But after GPT-4 became nerfed by OpenAI, I felt a void: how can I keep writing elegant programs? My answer is: I should learn how to do that myself.

SICP uses Scheme, which I don't mind. My main concern is that it's an old book. Are there ideas and concepts not discussed in the book which are crucial in today's programming landscape? Will I be better off reading a book that uses Python in the first place?

120 points behnamoh 3 years ago 98 comments

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