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Why MIT switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

(www.wisdomandwonder.com)
284 points borski | 2 comments | 25 Jul 25 16:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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MontyCarloHall ◴[25 Jul 25 17:23 UTC] No.44685710[source]▶
Isn't this just part of the broader trend of CS departments switching away from teaching computer science to teaching computer engineering, which in turn is part of the more general trend of colleges becoming more vocational?

LISP dialects like Scheme are excellent for teaching pure computer science because they are the closest thing to executing lambda calculus expressions. Whereas Python is excellent for teaching applied computer engineering, because it's essentially executable pseudocode for imperative languages, and imperative languages are the most common language a computer engineer encounters in the real world.

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NewsaHackO ◴[25 Jul 25 17:32 UTC] No.44685842[source]▶
Executable pseudocode is an oxymoron.
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1. ted_dunning ◴[25 Jul 25 17:38 UTC] No.44685906[source]▶
And so is Python in many ways. The shoe fits.
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2. gjm11 ◴[25 Jul 25 22:00 UTC] No.44689002[source]▶
An oxymoron is a word or phrase that contradicts itself (the word comes from Greek bits meaning "sharp" and "soft"). It doesn't make any sense at all to say that Python is an oxymoron. Python-the-language isn't the kind of thing that can be an oxymoron; "Python"-the-name obviously isn't one because it doesn't have two parts that could contradict one another.

Does your comment mean anything other than "I don't like Python very much", and if so what?