>>52
SICP is newbie programmers book.
Actually, it's a newbie
computer science book. Computer Science isn't about computers or programming languages necessarily. It is about algorithms and computation.
Recursion is horribly inefficient.
It may not be the most efficient use of a computers time, but using the same logic function calls which push the values of registers onto the stack are inefficient. If we accept that, then we may as well all return to programming in machine code.(An assembler would be a waste of precious memory)
The fact of the matter, is that computers are always getting faster due to the endevours of engineers (you're welcome), and that a few cycles can be expended for ease of programming. Now, if you are still going to bitch and moan about `lol inefficient`, then consider taking a career in embedded systems where every byte still matters(I'm currently optimising a program to run on a machine where ram is measured in hundreds of bytes)