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by dr-neptune 1508 days ago
Wishful thinking is mentioned several times in SICP, both in terms of to be implemented functions and in separation of concerns.

Oftentimes in the book, they will write out a function with reliance on a variety of other functions that haven't been written yet, but which show a blissfully declarative outline of exactly what the function does. Then you go and write the sub-functions.

Looking at the code after is quite nice, but it takes a bit to wrap your head around writing large swaths of code that can't run -- especially when you're used to writing REPL-driven code and consistently checking/"testing" it