What the heck is the "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" cover drawing about?

Posted by Paul Reiners on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Paul Reiners
Published on 2010-05-28T14:53:40Z Indexed on 2010/05/28 15:11 UTC
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lisp

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Scheme

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sicp

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abelson

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sussman

What the heck is the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs cover drawing about? I mean I know what "eval", "apply", and '?' all mean, but I'm having a hard time deciphering the rest of the picture.

Who the heck is the maiden? Does she work for the wizard? Why the heck is she pointing at the table? Is she pointing at that little bowl-type thing? Or the books? Or the table in general? Is she trying to tell the wizard that he should apply some sort of Lisp wizardry to the table or the items on it? Or is she just telling him something prosaic, such as his food is getting cold?

What the heck is the one leg on that table that looks like...a leg...with a foot at the end (as legs tend to have)? How does the table balance on one leg? (Or is that another leg in the shadows?)

[Note: I'm waiting for a lengthy build to finish in case you were wondering.]

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