> I have also written this book with working programmers in mind. Many of them may have not had a formal computer science education, or at least one that included a proper introduction to programming languages. At some point, like that 90% of students, some of them become curious about the media they use. I want this book to speak to them, gently drawing them away from the hustle and bustle of daily programming into a space of reflection and thought. - Shriram Krishnamurthi, Brown University
Great course, I took it a few years ago while working full time and loved it. I recommend this right alongside SICP for the engineer who wants to dig deeper.
SICP is mainly a book about how to structure systems. It also tells you how languages work, but in far less detail.
PLAI (this book) teaches you how languages work. It also tells you a bit about how to structure systems, but that is not its goal. In part that is not a goal because of the existence of books like SICP and, increasingly, DCIC [https://dcic-world.org/].
am i the only one for which programming language textbooks, papers, blog posts, etc. in racket are really hard to follow? the fact that the languages that is being operated on often looks exactly like racket makes it really hard to separate the two if i wanted to follow the tutorials in any other language.
Readit News
From the preface;
> I have also written this book with working programmers in mind. Many of them may have not had a formal computer science education, or at least one that included a proper introduction to programming languages. At some point, like that 90% of students, some of them become curious about the media they use. I want this book to speak to them, gently drawing them away from the hustle and bustle of daily programming into a space of reflection and thought. - Shriram Krishnamurthi, Brown University
[0](https://www.pyret.org/) [1](https://www.dcic-world.org/)
PLAI (this book) teaches you how languages work. It also tells you a bit about how to structure systems, but that is not its goal. In part that is not a goal because of the existence of books like SICP and, increasingly, DCIC [https://dcic-world.org/].
30 seconds into opening the textbook and I already like it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=skrishnamurthi