Comment by convolvatron
4 hours ago
these talks distill out the core questions of topics like mutability and state management and abstraction. almost uniquely so. so I consider them deeply relevant to systems programming in as much that its primarily concerned with..state management and abstraction.
unless you mean 'systems programming' as just 'the crap one does to try to glue together all the grotty pre-existing systems' and 'developing a good sense of taste about 3rd party libraries', in which case no, its not really very relevant.
although even here there is insight, I watched a video of Sussman describing why they were putting down SICP and demanding that MIT develop new introductory courses. he was so graceful and considered, putting his polished jewels away. the time when we could reasonably be expected to see across and through all the layers of abstraction was over.
addendum: actually I think the case for SICP in systems programming is stronger than that. There are several places in the material where the gap between 'high level programming' and 'construction of machines using gates' is thoroughly walked through and evaporated. maybe some of of the other similar treatments for logic programming and continuous analysis won't strike as deep, but that part should really be required reading.
All of the lectures? I did SICP as a freshman in 2005 but not all of it and have never watched these lectures save for the one where Abelson wears a fez and jokes about Kabbalah at the beginning.
sorry, I meant for a systems programmer the parts where there is a kind of dual correspondence developed between statements in a language and transistors on a board I think would probably open some mental doors for a systems programmer.
but I haven't gone through the video lectures or even all of SICP. but those that I did have had a lasting impact. particularly the erasure of the declarative/procedural dichotomy..thats been a very useful tool