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Why MIT switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

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284 points borski | 1 comments | 25 Jul 25 16:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.2s | 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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SoftTalker ◴[25 Jul 25 17:31 UTC] No.44685819[source]▶
Yes. One of the biggest complaints that computer science departments used to get from students is that they weren't learning any languages that employers are using.
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cess11 ◴[25 Jul 25 17:43 UTC] No.44685967[source]▶
I'm not so sure someone who's good with Scheme will be bad with Python or Java.

On the contrary, I suspect that such a person is likely to be better suited to build software in either of the latter two.

I also suspect that Python is not a particularly good first language for someone who aims for a professional career building software.

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1. Jtsummers ◴[25 Jul 25 17:53 UTC] No.44686085[source]▶
> I'm not so sure someone who's good with Scheme will be bad with Python or Java.

They won't be. But students don't understand that, they want to learn marketable skills and are 18 years old. They haven't figured out that if your skills transcend language choice you will be more marketable even if it means you have to spend a few weeks learning a new language for a new job. They lack maturity, which isn't surprising given their age and experience, and so they complain.