Structure and Interpretation of Programs

Course Description


Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs has been MIT's introductory pre-professional computer science subject since 1981. It emphasizes the role of computer languages as vehicles for expressing knowledge and it presents basic principles of abstraction and modularity, together with essential techniques for designing and implementing computer languages. This course has had a worldwide impact on computer science curricula over the past two decades. The accompanying textbook by Hal Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, and Julie Sussman is available for purchase from the MIT Press, which also provides a freely available on-line version of the complete textbook.



These twenty video lectures by Hal Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman are a complete presentation of the course, given in July 1986 for Hewlett-Packard employees, and professionally produced by Hewlett-Packard Television. The videos have been used extensively in corporate training at Hewlett-Packard and other companies, as well as at several universities and in MIT short courses for industry.In this course, M.I.T Professor Eric Grimson gives 20 video lectures on the concepts of computation. This course introduces students to the principles of computation. Upon completion of 6.001, students should be able to explain and apply the basic methods from programming languages to analyze computational systems, and to generate computational solutions to abstract problems. Substantial weekly programming assignments are an integral part of the course. This course is worth 4 Engineering Design Points.



Note: These lectures follow the first edition (1985) of Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. Many of the programs discussed were rewritten for the second edition (1996) of the book, and new material was added. These video lectures will still be useful for students using the second edition, since the overall themes of the course and order of presentation are unchanged.

Copyright Information

These video lectures are copyright by Hal Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman. They are licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Structure and Interpretation of Programs

Adapted from the cover of the textbook, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. 2nd ed., by Abelson, Harold, Gerald Jay Sussman, and Julie Sussman.
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Comments

Displaying 1 comment:

Stanley Galazka wrote 13 years ago.
I have begun viewing this lecture and can say from the
initial experience that by the time I am through with it I
will have solidified my ever expanding knowledge base of the
field of data machine throughput..

The description is a work in progress and most likely
attainable by the weekend.

I would proffer the title Overview of Computational Systems
and Introduction to its Mechanics.

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