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MontyCarloHall ◴[] 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 ◴[] 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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ok123456 ◴[] No.44686040[source]
There were plenty of less rarefied CS departments that were concerned about this, and they taught C, C++, or Java in their introductory classes.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. It's your first language, not your last.

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olddustytrail ◴[] No.44686065[source]
How many people do you know who are monolingual?
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1. _proofs ◴[] No.44688583[source]
programmers, and good ones imo, are almost always polyglots on some level, and i tend to think have a better than average ability to even pick up natural languages.

programming languages have a small, manageable and finite set of vocabulary, idioms, and constructs that most languages share but express differently depending on their intended use. a programmer fluent in programming will be able to pick up most languages. how those pieces are cobbled together to form more complicated abstractions becomes the skill obv.

that does not mean they'll be an expert right away, but it does mean they are usually competent enough at minimum to dive in and work with it just like any other tool -- they know they'll need a screwdriver, maybe a hammer, so they look up what it looks like and how it is used.

my daily drivers are python, cmake/Makefiles, c++, and c, with a sprinkling of bash, powershell.

i've worked with microsoft stacks C#/SQL, JavaScript, and i've written a ton of Lua. i've studied concepts and swe fundamentals in languages i don't really write code in and transcribe into code i do intend to write code in. i learned mostly using Lua first, then i picked up c++.

these are just the tools of my job overall. my main skill is communication and learning imo, and knowing which tools are better suited for a task at hand depending on requirements and limitations (mine or technical or both).