What are the prerequisites for this course? Usually, the prerequisite courses are mentioned in the syllabus section of the course description, but not for this course. I'm assuming that 6.00 is the only prerequisite; I just want to make sure.

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anonymous · Answer

There first few chapters are mathy, but if you have pre-calc that's good enough. The only official req is "some programming exp" http://web.mit.edu/alexmv/6.037/ (new course, but do the full 6.001 OCW course). I read the book "The Little Schemer" before doing it which taught me how to think recursively. SICP is an intensive book. You will learn how a computer language can eval and change itself, how to create a new language, and it's much faster to program in Scheme than any other language (i find). There's lot's of guides around, Google for the "Don't Panic guide to 6.001", and the MIT Scheme User's Manual. This page tells you how to set up your editor (emacs) for SICP http://hackerretreat.com/why-how-start-sicp/ or you can just use edwin, which comes bundled with mit-scheme. On Ubuntu/Debian sudo apt-get install mit-scheme and start it with "mit-scheme --edit" and edwin will start.