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Everything Is Just Functions: 1 week with David Beazley and SICP

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389 points kurinikku | 2 comments | 17 Nov 24 15:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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richrichie ◴[17 Nov 24 16:02 UTC] No.42164857[source]▶
Has anyone read the new SICP with Javascript as language of choice?
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0xpgm ◴[17 Nov 24 16:39 UTC] No.42165082[source]▶
Isn't scheme with close to zero syntax so easy to learn?

Why did someone think it was a good idea to switch to JavaScript?

I think the person who'll get value out of SICP will not have any problem picking up scheme syntax on the fly.

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SoftTalker ◴[17 Nov 24 17:02 UTC] No.42165278[source]▶
Because knowing scheme isn't going to get you a job at most places. Employers overwhelmingly want JavaScript or Python these days. Trailing that would probably be Java, C++ and C#, and regular old C.

When I did my undergrad CS degree, the fact that scheme was so heavily used was a common complaint they received from students. It just wasn't a marketable skill.

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1. Jtsummers ◴[17 Nov 24 17:58 UTC] No.42165654[source]▶
Four year CS degrees usually require something around 20 (maybe even more) CS courses. Are you saying that all of those courses at your school were taught in Scheme? You never had a chance (in the classes, ignoring hobby or internships) to use other languages? That'd be a pretty unique school.

But even if that were true and you did take 20+ classes in Scheme, you're still a college educated computer scientist. You can't pick up JavaScript or Python in time for a job interview for an entry level job? They're easy languages to learn. If you survived four years of exclusively being taught with Scheme, they'd be a breeze to pick up.

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2. SoftTalker ◴[17 Nov 24 18:25 UTC] No.42165853[source]▶
No not all scheme. That's an example. The intro course and programming languages course was scheme. There were a number of other languages used. I guess I should have been more nuanced in that a number of students wanted to be taught the currently popular progrmmming languages so they could use them on a resume. They complained about using scheme (or whatever "teaching" language a professor might require) and did not yet appreciate that the concepts/theory they were learning applied to any programming language they might need to use.

They wanted a trade school/practical education in something immediately marketable, not a theoretical education.

The reason I remember this is that in my "exit interview" as a senior I mentioned that I appreciated the exposure to these languages and theory and my advisor remarked "we don't hear that very often, the usual feedback is that we don't teach the languages employers want"