&gt; <i>You need automata theory... Turing-completeness... PDAs and FSAs...  </i><p>Why?  I know that stuff inside and out, and across multiple jobs I have used none of it ever.  What chance to use this favourite bit of my education did I miss?  (Or rather, might I have missed, so that you might speak to the general case)<p>&gt; <i>You need to know how to compile a high-level language down to an RTL.</i><p>Why?  Same comment as above.<p>&gt; <i>You need to understand what a fixed point is and why it matters.</i><p>Well, I don&#x27;t, and I don&#x27;t.  I request a pointer to suitable study material, noting that googling this mostly points me to a mathematical definition which I suspect is related to, but distinct from, the definition you had in mind.<p>Otherwise... as I read down this thread I was all ready to disagree with you, but it turns out I&#x27;d jumped to a false conclusion, based on the SICP context of this thread.  Literacy, what a pain in the butt.<p>In particular, the idea that ((the notion of an environment) is a fundamental&#x2F;foundational concept) is a new idea to me, and immediately compelling.  I did not learn this in my academic training, learned it since, and have found it be very fruitful.  Likewise with lexical vs dynamic binding, actually.