Cover of The Scheme programming language

The Scheme programming language

by R. Kent Dybvig · first published 1987

11mentions
8recommended by
11HN commenters
2008–2026first – last mentioned

73% recommend27% neutral

Why HN recommends it

Clear, focused reference-style Scheme book praised as consistent and well organized, with an extended examples chapter; suits readers who already know the basics and want a thorough, up-to-date guide to the language.

Summarised by Claude from recommending comments

Scheme is a general purpose programming language descended from Algol and Lisp. Because it is conceptually clean and simple, it is an easy language to learn. At the same time, it is a powerful language, and full mastery of its power requires careful study and practice. Scheme is widely used in computing education and research, as well as for a broad spectrum of industrial applications ranging from graphical user interfaces and language compilers to virtual reality engines, web navigators, and enterprise computing solutions. This revised edition of The Scheme Programming Language provides an

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Mentions per year

20 2007: 0 mentions2008: 2 mentions2009: 0 mentions2010: 0 mentions2011: 1 mention2012: 1 mention2013: 0 mentions2014: 0 mentions2015: 0 mentions2016: 1 mention2017: 0 mentions2018: 0 mentions2019: 0 mentions2020: 1 mention2021: 0 mentions2022: 0 mentions2023: 1 mention2024: 1 mention2025: 1 mention2026: 2 mentions200720172026

What Hacker News says

  • edw · Jun 1, 2011 · Recommends

    _The Scheme Programming Language_ by Kent Dybvig is also very good. _Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_ is my preferred "how to think in Scheme" book. I would recommend against _How to Design Programs_, which is entirely…

    on “Blunt and necessary review of programming language books.” ↗
  • Diogenesian · Jul 18, 2026 · Recommends

    The Scheme Programming Language by R. Kent Dybvig is very much worth reading after you finish SICP. Truly the same caliber as K&R's C Programming Language, and more up-to-date (R6RS). The earlier exercises aren't too tricky (except…

    on “A Road to Lisp: Which Lisp” ↗
  • ice_man · Oct 29, 2008 · Recommends

    …Algorithms - Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, Stein (aka CLRS) Design Patterns - Gamma, Helm, Johnson, Vlissides The C Programming Language - Kernighan, Ritchie The C++ Programming Language - Stroustrup The Scheme Programming Language - Dybvig Practical Common LISP - Seibel Programming Perl - Wall, Christiansen and Orwant ANSI Common Lisp - Graham Refactoring - Fowler UML Distilled - Fowler Introduction to the Theory of Computation…

    on “ASK HN: Hacker Bibles” ↗
  • rohwer · Apr 26, 2016 · Recommends

    Dybvig's compiler course was exemplary. Say what you may about Scheme, you learned so much more in those classes. His Scheme Programming Language book is highly recommended. Especially check out his extended examples chapter: http://www.scheme.com/tspl4/examples.html#./examples:h0

    on “Chez Scheme is now free” ↗
  • ulbu · May 24, 2026 · Recommends

    …error messages entirely unhelpful, documentation masquerades as deep but is indeed inconsistent and prosaic, mixing styles of reference, explanation, and how-to willy-nilly, (compare with Dybvig’s The Scheme Programming Language, which is focused and consistent, and it takes no time to get your answers; there’s just no method to guile and guix manuals), i hate it big time, there’s big gaps in documentation (especially with Guix…

    on “I keep bouncing off the Scheme language” ↗
  • vthakr · Feb 29, 2008 · Recommends

    …http://www.onlamp.com/pub/wlg/8595). Also, I've recently gotten back into lisp once again myself--although this time I am going the scheme route--and I am currently reading through R. Kent Dybvig's book The Scheme Programming Language and I'm finding it to be a truly excellent book and it is also free online here http://www.scheme.com/tspl3/. And of course make sure you take a look at the Arc tutorial (http://ycombinator.com/arc/tut.txt)…

    on “Ask YC: I started learning Lisp and I'm looking for some advice.” ↗
  • telemachos · Jan 6, 2012 · Recommends

    Two others for Scheme: The Scheme Programming Language, 4th Ed. by R. Kent Dybvig[1] Simply Scheme: Introducing Computer Science by Brian Harvey and Matthew Wright, 2nd Ed.[2] [1]: http://www.scheme.com/tspl4/ [2]: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/ss-toc2.html

    on “Free Programming Ebooks” ↗
  • rednosehacker · Sep 15, 2020 · Recommends

    …Felleisen, Robert Bruce Findler, Matthew Flatt, Shriram Krishnamurthi) The Little Schemer (Daniel P. Friedman, Matthias Felleisen) Teach Yourself Scheme in Fixnum Days (Dorai Sitaram) The Scheme Programming Language (R. Kent Dybvig) For video watchers : Andy Balaam videos For practitioners : Exercism.io Programming Praxis Anything else ?

    on “Ask HN: How to Get Started in Scheme?” ↗
  • kazinator · May 13, 2023 · Mentions

    > For instance, the example below is from Kent Dybvig, The Scheme Programming Language, 4th ed. In this chunk of Scheme code, the opening-quote marks are supposed to be backticks; the closing-quote mark is supposed to be a single straight quote: Sorry, as a Lisp person, I don't see the…

    on “Ligatures in programming fonts: hell no” ↗
  • mcguire · Oct 9, 2024 · Mentions

    …(https://www.cs.rpi.edu/academics/courses/fall00/ai/scheme/re...) A copy of a 1997 tutorial for a 2000 class at RPI; has broken links pointing to http://cs.wwc.edu/~cs_dept/KU/PR/. 5. Kent Dybvig's The Scheme Programming Language 4th ed. (https://www.scheme.com/tspl4/) 6. Reddit "Best beginner friendly "write a scheme" tutorial?" (https://www.reddit.com/r/scheme/comments/klt0af/best_beginne...) 7. A link to the introduction…

    on “US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case” ↗
  • The Development of Chez Scheme R. Kent Dybvig https://web.archive.org/web/20061205234158/https://www.cs.in... The Scheme Programming Language 4e https://www.scheme.com/tspl4/

    on “Why MIT switched from Scheme to Python (2009)” ↗

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