Regarding the difficulty of sicp

Sicp(Structure and interpretation of computer programs) if anything has made me aware of weaknesses and strengths.

Getting around lambda notation has been one challenge. It is gradually coming more naturally, but after programming for years mainly in C++ getting used to functions as first order has put my brain for a twist. Several times.

Similarly, I have been really poor about data hiding for a long time. Nowadays I am certainly better about it, but I still have difficulty considering ideas such as flatmap as a black box. I try to think about what is going on inside it rather than "what does flatmap do?", making a relatively simple problem(the queens problem from my last post) a lot more mentally challenging.

On the other hand, working with the picture language described in part 2.2.4 came very naturally. I can only presume this was from working in computer graphics which I studied as part of my computer games development course at university.

Of course the natural thing to do would be to describe all the transformations in matrices...

That being said, despite being an "introductory" textbook, sicp really challenges a lot of preconceived notions and habits, and opens up new ways of thinking. It is certainly challenging, but it is definitely worth taking the time to read(at least so far).

I can't wait to get to the interpreter implementation. If only I could balance more time into it from all the other reading I'm doing now(Programming Pearls just arrived but it may be a while till I get around to that).