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Why MIT Switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

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Re: Why MIT Switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

#81

Post by toast0 »

e12e wrote: post #38
charles-salvia wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know - I'm being facetious, but really, if you want to really understand how most modern computers actually work, there's probably no better way than to learn C. It's high level enough and provides enough structure so that you don't need to actually blurt out a bunch of assembly instructions, but low-level enough so that your code mostly more or less corresponds to what the underlying Von Neumann hardware is actual…

I'm not convinced c without assembly is much better than Pascal or even Rust. Sure, you might not need a full assembly course (write a real, multi-user, bare-metal os in assembler using most of x86 16,32 and 64bit syntax) - but a C course mixed with assembly I think makes a lot of sense if the goal is to learn a bit about how computers get work done. I mean, one should be able to look at the assembler output of hello…

I think it depends on what modern means. If modern means more or less the system architecture basics from the 80s that our current systems pretend to be, C is a pretty straightforward mapping; but if modern means Intel kaby lake/amd ryzen, there's a lot of things going on that C or even assembly don't really address.

Re: Why MIT Switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

#83

Post by jnordwick »

tmccrmck wrote: post #47
cbr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a student claims to know what the class would teach, you don't have to take their word for it: you can talk to them, or you can give them a test. (I skipped the first two intro CS classes in college after talking to the professors and figuring out the right place to start given my background.)

Berkeley used to let students skip the introductory CS course, 61a (in Scheme), if they had received a 5 on the AP CS exam. They removed that option I believe after fall 2010. One of my friends was able to skip 61a by meeting with the department chair, Paul Hilfinger, and convincing him that 61a would be a waste of time for him. My friend could drone on and on about the simplest of subjects so we assumed he just anno…

Hilfinger also liked to give people enough rope to hang themselves many times over with.

Re: Why MIT Switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

#84

Post by jnordwick »

jedberg wrote: post #7

Berkeley made the same switch at around the same time, and it made me sad. Having done the intro course in Scheme, I'd say it helped me understand functional programming far more than I ever could have with Python, and it opened me up to different ways of thinking. Even though I never again used any Lisp variant, I'm still really glad I learned it and feel that what I learned using Lisp has informed my future decisio…

61A gave me my entire background to programming and computer science. I had never programmed a computer before, and I think I was better for it.

The common phrase was that you should be made to take 61A as your first class and as your last. You really dont fully comprehend it until you get wider exposure, but you need that initial exposure so your brain can begin to knit things together as you see them.

Meta-Circular Evaluator RIP. You will be missed.

Re: Why MIT Switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

#85

Post by jnordwick »

ivansavz wrote: post #77

I think SISP is an awesome book, but I don't see why it has to be Scheme, at least for the first half of the book. Let's not be too dogmatic about our shovels. A shovel is a shovel. For example, here is SICP with examples using the JavaScript shovel: https://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~cs1101s/sicp/ BTW, since this site isn't super mobile-friendly, I made a modible friendly version a while back: http://ivanistheone.github.i…

The Metacircular Evaluator should be a prime example of why Scheme matters. It completely loses focus into a mess of parsing and loses the idea that code and data are the same thing. Also that whole tail-recursion thing is kind of important.

Re: Why MIT Switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

#87

Post by zumu »

For all those fondly recalling learning Scheme first, allow me to provide the opposite perspective (kind of).

Learning Scheme as my first language scared me away from programming for years. Yes, solutions to problems were often elegant and puzzle-like, but accordingly, the tools and patterns often felt constrained and roundabout. For example, consider recursive patterns vs conventional looping patterns.

In that class I often felt I wasn't learning a 'real' production programming language, but rather a language designed to teach me programming concepts.

To that point, I think Python offers a much more robust and straight forward tool set, while also being friendly enough for the young developer to sink their teeth into.

However, in retrospect I was just a bratty kid, who was learning a lot of valuable fundamentals. I'd like to think some of those have stuck with me to this day, esp. as functional patterns have come into vogue.

Re: Why MIT Switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

#88

Post by int_19h »

jcranmer wrote: post #16
evdev wrote: post #2

I think there's a tension between two imperatives in teaching new programmers: 1) Learning must be applied learning. Give people problems to solve and they will come to you for data structures and algorithms, O notation, etc. If they don't, they should do something else 2) A lot of what's out there in programming languages are cargo cults, and newbies need to be prepared for this. For instance, virtual function inher…

While I think that most CS people should learn assembly and computer internals basics, it would be an absolute disaster to start students off in assembly as CS 101. Python is a fairly decent language for starting people off: * It doesn't have a lot of boilerplate, so no magic "I'll teach you what this means in three weeks" steps * Output for debugging is fairly easy, since print accepts a lot of stuff without needing…

I'll add one more item to this list: Python has a turtle graphics library out of the box. Turtle graphics is an excellent way to explain concepts like loops, functions and recursion in a visual way that is much easier to grok than the more abstract explanations. It goes step by step, too: you can show the basic notion of issuing statements by drawing stuff like triangles and squares and pentagons; then demonstrate how this becomes tedious as number of edges grows, which gives an opportunity to introduce looping; then show how it's essentially the same loop for various polygons with different parameters, and introduce functions. Drawing spirals, snowflakes and trees is where recursion steps in. And so on.

Re: Why MIT Switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

#89

Post by int_19h »

jksmith wrote: post #60
wffurr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sheer amount of nonsensical boilerplate required in any Java program, even trivial ones, makes it a terrible language for teaching Computer Science. Think about trying to teach the meaning of "public class Foo { public static void main(String[] args) { ... }}" to a complete novice. Class-based design, inheritance, visibility, return types, arrays, etc. all right off the bat. It's too much. Scheme and Python both…

Some snarky drift: Then post-college commercial reality sets in, where using mind numbing boilerplate supported by frameworks and heavy ides (as opposed to libraries, custom or otherwise, and an editor), is SOP. Join the programming masses and literally think inside the box(es). So why did you go to college now?

So that you can realize that you're inside a box, and leave it on those few opportunities that present themselves (and, perhaps, specifically seek out such opportunities).
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