In my country, we have Computer Science and Computer Engineering. CompSci is done in Science or Math faculties, while CompEng is done in engineering faculties.
CompSci is about abstract theory. It's more related to math then to engineering. To CompSci, computer languages are the building blocks. The fact that those language happen to run on computers is implementation detail. The fact that those computers are imperative is also implementation detail.
I'd say most CompSci students here don't care much about the inner workings of computers.
CompEng students are different. They couldn't care less about functional programming and care a lot about the underlying implementation.
Different people, different interests. I'd keep SICP for CompSci but not for CompEng.
I'll end with a quote:
Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes~Edsger Dijkstra
CompSci is about abstract theory. It's more related to math then to engineering. To CompSci, computer languages are the building blocks. The fact that those language happen to run on computers is implementation detail. The fact that those computers are imperative is also implementation detail.
I'd say most CompSci students here don't care much about the inner workings of computers.
CompEng students are different. They couldn't care less about functional programming and care a lot about the underlying implementation.
Different people, different interests. I'd keep SICP for CompSci but not for CompEng.
I'll end with a quote: Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes ~Edsger Dijkstra