Ever since the publication of its first edition in 1984, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP) has influenced computer science curricula around the world. Widely adopted as a textbook, the book has its origins in a popular entry-level computer science course taught by Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman at MIT. SICP introduces the reader to central ideas of computation by establishing a series of mental models for computation. Earlier editions used the programming language Scheme in their program examples. This new edition has been adapted for JavaScript.

The first three chapters of SICP cover programming concepts that are common to all modern high-level programming languages. Chapters four and five, which used Scheme to formulate language processors for Scheme, required revision. Chapter four offers substantial new material, in particular an introduction to the notion of program parsing. The JavaScript subset used this edition is designed to be just expressive enough for presenting the ideas of SICP with a conciseness and precision that matches the original. A JavaScript sublanguage and function library has been designed for each chapter, and a web-based programming environment, Source Academy, has been developed to strengthen the students' adherence to the chosen sublanguage.