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©1996 by e Massachuses Institute of Technology
e Press
Cambridge, Massachuses
London, England
Dedication xii
Foreword xiii
Anowledgments xxv
iii
1.1.8 Procedures as Black-Box Abstractions . . . . . 33
1.2 Procedures and the Processes ey Generate . . . . . . 40
1.2.1 Linear Recursion and Iteration . . . . . . . . . 41
1.2.2 Tree Recursion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
1.2.3 Orders of Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
1.2.4 Exponentiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
1.2.5 Greatest Common Divisors . . . . . . . . . . . 62
1.2.6 Example: Testing for Primality . . . . . . . . . 65
1.3 Formulating Abstractions
with Higher-Order Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
1.3.1 Procedures as Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
1.3.2 Constructing Procedures Using lambda . . . . . 83
1.3.3 Procedures as General Methods . . . . . . . . . 89
1.3.4 Procedures as Returned Values . . . . . . . . . 97
iv
2.3.2 Example: Symbolic Differentiation . . . . . . . 197
2.3.3 Example: Representing Sets . . . . . . . . . . . 205
2.3.4 Example: Huffman Encoding Trees . . . . . . . 218
2.4 Multiple Representations for Abstract Data . . . . . . . 229
2.4.1 Representations for Complex Numbers . . . . . 232
2.4.2 Tagged data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
2.4.3 Data-Directed Programming and Additivity . . 242
2.5 Systems with Generic Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
2.5.1 Generic Arithmetic Operations . . . . . . . . . 255
2.5.2 Combining Data of Different Types . . . . . . . 262
2.5.3 Example: Symbolic Algebra . . . . . . . . . . . 274
v
3.4.1 e Nature of Time in Concurrent Systems . . 403
3.4.2 Mechanisms for Controlling Concurrency . . . 410
3.5 Streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
3.5.1 Streams Are Delayed Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
3.5.2 Infinite Streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
3.5.3 Exploiting the Stream Paradigm . . . . . . . . . 453
3.5.4 Streams and Delayed Evaluation . . . . . . . . 470
3.5.5 Modularity of Functional Programs
and Modularity of Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
vi
4.4.2 How the ery System Works . . . . . . . . . 615
4.4.3 Is Logic Programming Mathematical Logic? . . 627
4.4.4 Implementing the ery System . . . . . . . . 635
4.4.4.1 e Driver Loop and Instantiation . . 636
4.4.4.2 e Evaluator . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638
4.4.4.3 Finding Assertions
by Paern Matching . . . . . . . . . 642
4.4.4.4 Rules and Unification . . . . . . . . . 645
4.4.4.5 Maintaining the Data Base . . . . . . 651
4.4.4.6 Stream Operations . . . . . . . . . . 654
4.4.4.7 ery Syntax Procedures . . . . . . . 656
4.4.4.8 Frames and Bindings . . . . . . . . . 659
vii
5.4 e Explicit-Control Evaluator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 741
5.4.1 e Core of the Explicit-Control Evaluator . . . 743
5.4.2 Sequence Evaluation and Tail Recursion . . . . 751
5.4.3 Conditionals, Assignments, and Definitions . . 756
5.4.4 Running the Evaluator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759
5.5 Compilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 767
5.5.1 Structure of the Compiler . . . . . . . . . . . . 772
5.5.2 Compiling Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 779
5.5.3 Compiling Combinations . . . . . . . . . . . . 788
5.5.4 Combining Instruction Sequences . . . . . . . . 797
5.5.5 An Example of Compiled Code . . . . . . . . . 802
5.5.6 Lexical Addressing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 817
5.5.7 Interfacing Compiled Code to the Evaluator . . 823
References 834
Index 848
Colophon 855
viii
Unofficial Texinfo Format
is is the second edition book, from Unofficial Texinfo Format.
You are probably reading it in an Info hypertext browser, such as the
Info mode of Emacs. You might alternatively be reading it TEX-formaed
on your screen or printer, though that would be silly. And, if printed,
expensive.
e freely-distributed official -and- format was first con-
verted personally to Unofficial Texinfo Format () version 1 by Lytha
Ayth during a long Emacs lovefest weekend in April, 2001.
e is easier to search than the format. It is also much
more accessible to people running on modest computers, such as do-
nated ’386-based PCs. A 386 can, in theory, run Linux, Emacs, and a
Scheme interpreter simultaneously, but most 386s probably can’t also
run both Netscape and the necessary X Window System without prema-
turely introducing budding young underfunded hackers to the concept
of thrashing. can also fit uncompressed on a 1.44 floppy diskee,
which may come in handy for installing on PCs that do not have
Internet or access.
e Texinfo conversion has been a straight transliteration, to the
extent possible. Like the TEX-to- conversion, this was not without
some introduction of breakage. In the case of Unofficial Texinfo Format,
ix
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figures have suffered an amateurish resurrection of the lost art of .
Also, it’s quite possible that some errors of ambiguity were introduced
during the conversion of some of the copious superscripts (‘ˆ’) and sub-
scripts (‘_’). Divining which has been le as an exercise to the reader.
But at least we don’t put our brave astronauts at risk by encoding the
greater-than-or-equal symbol as <u>></u>.
If you modify sicp.texi to correct errors or improve the art,
then update the @set utfversion 2.andresraba5.6 line to reflect your
delta. For example, if you started with Lytha’s version 1, and your name
is Bob, then you could name your successive versions 1.bob1, 1.bob2,
. . . 1.bobn. Also update utfversiondate. If you want to distribute your
version on the Web, then embedding the string “sicp.texi” somewhere
in the file or Web page will make it easier for people to find with Web
search engines.
It is believed that the Unofficial Texinfo Format is in keeping with
the spirit of the graciously freely-distributed version. But you
never know when someone’s armada of lawyers might need something
to do, and get their shorts all in a knot over some benign lile thing,
so think twice before you use your full name or distribute Info, ,
PostScript, or formats that might embed your account or machine
name.
Peath, Lytha Ayth
Addendum: See also the video lectures by Abelson and Sussman:
at or .
Second Addendum: Above is the original introduction to the from
2001. Ten years later, has been transformed: mathematical symbols
and formulas are properly typeset, and figures drawn in vector graph-
ics. e original text formulas and art figures are still there in
x
the Texinfo source, but will display only when compiled to Info output.
At the dawn of e-book readers and tablets, reading a on screen is
officially not silly anymore. Enjoy!
A.R, May, 2011
xi
Dedication
xii
Foreword
xiii
human experience and thought, are huge in number, intricate in de-
tail, and at any time only partially understood. ey are modeled to our
permanent satisfaction rarely by our computer programs. us even
though our programs are carefully handcraed discrete collections of
symbols, mosaics of interlocking functions, they continually evolve: we
change them as our perception of the model deepens, enlarges, gen-
eralizes until the model ultimately aains a metastable place within
still another model with which we struggle. e source of the exhilara-
tion associated with computer programming is the continual unfolding
within the mind and on the computer of mechanisms expressed as pro-
grams and the explosion of perception they generate. If art interprets
our dreams, the computer executes them in the guise of programs!
For all its power, the computer is a harsh taskmaster. Its programs
must be correct, and what we wish to say must be said accurately in ev-
ery detail. As in every other symbolic activity, we become convinced of
program truth through argument. Lisp itself can be assigned a seman-
tics (another model, by the way), and if a program’s function can be
specified, say, in the predicate calculus, the proof methods of logic can
be used to make an acceptable correctness argument. Unfortunately, as
programs get large and complicated, as they almost always do, the ade-
quacy, consistency, and correctness of the specifications themselves be-
come open to doubt, so that complete formal arguments of correctness
seldom accompany large programs. Since large programs grow from
small ones, it is crucial that we develop an arsenal of standard program
structures of whose correctness we have become sure—we call them
idioms—and learn to combine them into larger structures using orga-
nizational techniques of proven value. ese techniques are treated at
length in this book, and understanding them is essential to participation
in the Promethean enterprise called programming. More than anything
xiv
else, the uncovering and mastery of powerful organizational techniques
accelerates our ability to create large, significant programs. Conversely,
since writing large programs is very taxing, we are stimulated to invent
new methods of reducing the mass of function and detail to be fied
into large programs.
Unlike programs, computers must obey the laws of physics. If they
wish to perform rapidly—a few nanoseconds per state change—they
must transmit electrons only small distances (at most 1 12 feet). e heat
generated by the huge number of devices so concentrated in space has to
be removed. An exquisite engineering art has been developed balancing
between multiplicity of function and density of devices. In any event,
hardware always operates at a level more primitive than that at which
we care to program. e processes that transform our Lisp programs
to “machine” programs are themselves abstract models which we pro-
gram. eir study and creation give a great deal of insight into the or-
ganizational programs associated with programming arbitrary models.
Of course the computer itself can be so modeled. ink of it: the behav-
ior of the smallest physical switching element is modeled by quantum
mechanics described by differential equations whose detailed behavior
is captured by numerical approximations represented in computer pro-
grams executing on computers composed of . . .!
It is not merely a maer of tactical convenience to separately iden-
tify the three foci. Even though, as they say, it’s all in the head, this
logical separation induces an acceleration of symbolic traffic between
these foci whose richness, vitality, and potential is exceeded in human
experience only by the evolution of life itself. At best, relationships be-
tween the foci are metastable. e computers are never large enough or
fast enough. Each breakthrough in hardware technology leads to more
massive programming enterprises, new organizational principles, and
xv
an enrichment of abstract models. Every reader should ask himself pe-
riodically “Toward what end, toward what end?”—but do not ask it too
oen lest you pass up the fun of programming for the constipation of
biersweet philosophy.
Among the programs we write, some (but never enough) perform a
precise mathematical function such as sorting or finding the maximum
of a sequence of numbers, determining primality, or finding the square
root. We call such programs algorithms, and a great deal is known of
their optimal behavior, particularly with respect to the two important
parameters of execution time and data storage requirements. A pro-
grammer should acquire good algorithms and idioms. Even though some
programs resist precise specifications, it is the responsibility of the pro-
grammer to estimate, and always to aempt to improve, their perfor-
mance.
Lisp is a survivor, having been in use for about a quarter of a cen-
tury. Among the active programming languages only Fortran has had
a longer life. Both languages have supported the programming needs
of important areas of application, Fortran for scientific and engineering
computation and Lisp for artificial intelligence. ese two areas con-
tinue to be important, and their programmers are so devoted to these
two languages that Lisp and Fortran may well continue in active use for
at least another quarter-century.
Lisp changes. e Scheme dialect used in this text has evolved from
the original Lisp and differs from the laer in several important ways,
including static scoping for variable binding and permiing functions to
yield functions as values. In its semantic structure Scheme is as closely
akin to Algol 60 as to early Lisps. Algol 60, never to be an active language
again, lives on in the genes of Scheme and Pascal. It would be difficult
to find two languages that are the communicating coin of two more dif-
xvi
ferent cultures than those gathered around these two languages. Pas-
cal is for building pyramids—imposing, breathtaking, static structures
built by armies pushing heavy blocks into place. Lisp is for building
organisms—imposing, breathtaking, dynamic structures built by squads
fiing fluctuating myriads of simpler organisms into place. e organiz-
ing principles used are the same in both cases, except for one extraordi-
narily important difference: e discretionary exportable functionality
entrusted to the individual Lisp programmer is more than an order of
magnitude greater than that to be found within Pascal enterprises. Lisp
programs inflate libraries with functions whose utility transcends the
application that produced them. e list, Lisp’s native data structure, is
largely responsible for such growth of utility. e simple structure and
natural applicability of lists are reflected in functions that are amazingly
nonidiosyncratic. In Pascal the plethora of declarable data structures in-
duces a specialization within functions that inhibits and penalizes ca-
sual cooperation. It is beer to have 100 functions operate on one data
structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures. As a
result the pyramid must stand unchanged for a millennium; the organ-
ism must evolve or perish.
To illustrate this difference, compare the treatment of material and
exercises within this book with that in any first-course text using Pascal.
Do not labor under the illusion that this is a text digestible at only,
peculiar to the breed found there. It is precisely what a serious book on
programming Lisp must be, no maer who the student is or where it is
used.
Note that this is a text about programming, unlike most Lisp books,
which are used as a preparation for work in artificial intelligence. Aer
all, the critical programming concerns of soware engineering and ar-
tificial intelligence tend to coalesce as the systems under investigation
xvii
become larger. is explains why there is such growing interest in Lisp
outside of artificial intelligence.
As one would expect from its goals, artificial intelligence research
generates many significant programming problems. In other program-
ming cultures this spate of problems spawns new languages. Indeed, in
any very large programming task a useful organizing principle is to con-
trol and isolate traffic within the task modules via the invention of lan-
guage. ese languages tend to become less primitive as one approaches
the boundaries of the system where we humans interact most oen. As
a result, such systems contain complex language-processing functions
replicated many times. Lisp has such a simple syntax and semantics that
parsing can be treated as an elementary task. us parsing technology
plays almost no role in Lisp programs, and the construction of language
processors is rarely an impediment to the rate of growth and change of
large Lisp systems. Finally, it is this very simplicity of syntax and se-
mantics that is responsible for the burden and freedom borne by all
Lisp programmers. No Lisp program of any size beyond a few lines can
be wrien without being saturated with discretionary functions. Invent
and fit; have fits and reinvent! We toast the Lisp programmer who pens
his thoughts within nests of parentheses.
Alan J. Perlis
New Haven, Connecticut
xviii
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