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Python is now the most popular introductory language at top U.S. universities

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Re: Python is now the most popular introductory language at top U.S. universities

#71

Post by Alupis »

huu wrote: post #50
Alupis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couple of thoughts: 1) I hope they are teaching Python 3.x instead of 2.7.x. 2) A good portion of the schools cited in the Appendix are not "computer" schools. UC Davis for example, is the last place I would attend for a CS degree (I know many students at UC Davis -- it's much better suited for other degrees). 3) My school (CSU Sacramento) does not even offer any Python courses, but there's a lot of Java and C course…

For reference, the ranking used by the author is from US News & World Report[1]. While it's far from objective, it certainly holds enough merit such that UC Davis being the last school you would attend for CS sounds ridiculous. [1]: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu...

You linked to Grad School rankings -- hardly what anyone would consider "beginner programming courses".

Re: Python is now the most popular introductory language at top U.S. universities

#72

Post by lmm »

franparga95 wrote: post #32

Hey there! I've just started learning to code for building web apps (I know about Fortran 90, it doesn't fit very well on the browser haha), and it took me a while to decide. I looked up in an endless number of hacker websites, but at the end I'm sorry for betraying Python lovers... I'm learning ruby on rails..! I've just started learning, please tell me If it's best to learn python (I'm not looking for an easy langu…

There's really not much difference between Ruby and Python. I prefer Python and would argue it's a little more versatile (at least in terms of library support - people do command line scripts and scientific computing in python whereas Ruby is quite webdev-focussed) but honestly, who cares. Pick one or the other, learn it, have fun with it, use it to solve problems. And then make your next language something radically different from either of them (Haskell?)

Re: Python is now the most popular introductory language at top U.S. universities

#73

Post by aceofspades19 »

beamatronic wrote: post #52
tdicola wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless your university is really weird, I can guarantee you will learn many more languages than just the intro language. When I got my computer engineering degree in the early 2000's I was exposed to C, C++, Java, Scheme & Lisp, SPARC & 68k assembly, and even a bit of Python. Learning Python as the intro language instead of C++ would have been much nicer for folks who were completely green to programming.

I would hope that no one in a freshman CS program is "completely green to programming".

Well some introductory CS courses are taken by people in other majors. At my university, all science majors(as far as I know) have to take at least 1 introductory programming course. In that context, it makes sense to use python to introduce the concept of programming to people.

Re: Python is now the most popular introductory language at top U.S. universities

#74

Post by Alupis »

christopheraden wrote: post #41
Alupis wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couple of thoughts: 1) I hope they are teaching Python 3.x instead of 2.7.x. 2) A good portion of the schools cited in the Appendix are not "computer" schools. UC Davis for example, is the last place I would attend for a CS degree (I know many students at UC Davis -- it's much better suited for other degrees). 3) My school (CSU Sacramento) does not even offer any Python courses, but there's a lot of Java and C course…

UC Davis student here. To be fair, ECS10 is not a class that CS majors usually take--it's primarily an elective, and taken by non-majors as a way of satisfying science and engineering general elective credit. The CS majors start with ECS30, which uses C; ECS10 isn't even a required class for the Computer Science programs. As for whether or not they are computer schools, that criterion was determined through USN&WR, a…

Very interesting (CSU Sacramento student here). Our CS Major's start with CSC10 (or is it 15?) which is C, then CSC20 which is Java, then CSC35 which is Assembler (GAS/Linux). From there, it depends on your focus, but a large amount of classes favor Java, and a few C/C++.

Re: Python is now the most popular introductory language at top U.S. universities

#75

Post by blahedo »

This methodology is suspect, and the headline is extremely deceptive. Note that Guo has conflated CS0 (meaning: CS for non-majors) with CS1 (meaning: intro to CS major). He is upfront about this fact and he does it intentionally, but comments about "first officially-sanctioned exposure in college" and such make it sound like he's unaware that most CS majors do not ever take a CS0 course; and among instructors of CS, phrases like "introductory language" without further qualification is usually understood as referring to CS1.

If we then look at the table of actual data to filter a little bit, the story changes. There are certainly some schools, big ones, that use Python in CS1. But a lot of the Python representation is coming from CS0 at schools where CS1 is taught using Java.

(I can also clarify one of his other comments: he says of the AP exam using Java that "it's unclear whether that will change anytime soon." This is untrue. It will not change in the next 3-4 years at the very minimum---and that would be the time frame if the College Board said right now today that a change was happening. In fact, though, although the idea's been mentioned, there has been no study or apparent motion on that front, so a more realistic earliest-date-of-change would be around 2019 or 2020. And I wouldn't count on it, given how many CS1 courses are still taught in Java.)

Re: Python is now the most popular introductory language at top U.S. universities

#76

Post by Igglyboo »

givan wrote: post #36

Is sad that students never get to learn something like http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput... they could easily learn any other language after, learning just java or python is practical only to prepare them for a corporate job.

The article only talks about introductory classes, most universities with decent CS programs will teach more than one language.

Re: Python is now the most popular introductory language at top U.S. universities

#77

Post by mutagen »

franparga95 wrote: post #32

Hey there! I've just started learning to code for building web apps (I know about Fortran 90, it doesn't fit very well on the browser haha), and it took me a while to decide. I looked up in an endless number of hacker websites, but at the end I'm sorry for betraying Python lovers... I'm learning ruby on rails..! I've just started learning, please tell me If it's best to learn python (I'm not looking for an easy langu…

I really like Python but I think there's nothing wrong with continuing to learn Ruby and Rails. Be sure to learn both Ruby the language and Rails the framework, there's more to Ruby than Rails. You'll likely also want to at least get your toes wet with Javascript so you can write native code for the client side of the browser, while you're learning that you'll be comparing with what you've learned with Ruby and from your previous experience with Fortran.

After learning those picking up Python will be fairly easy. Again, you'll be comparing with what you know, finding differences and similarities.

Don't worry too much about finding the perfect language, it doesn't exist. Spend your time building nice things in languages and frameworks that are good at at what they do. Be ready to try new things, you might like them, they might work well for a particular task or have a great ecosystem to accomplish specific things.

Re: Python is now the most popular introductory language at top U.S. universities

#78

Post by johnny_utah »

franparga95 wrote: post #32

Hey there! I've just started learning to code for building web apps (I know about Fortran 90, it doesn't fit very well on the browser haha), and it took me a while to decide. I looked up in an endless number of hacker websites, but at the end I'm sorry for betraying Python lovers... I'm learning ruby on rails..! I've just started learning, please tell me If it's best to learn python (I'm not looking for an easy langu…

I would not worry too much about making the "wrong" choice between Ruby and Python. I found it fairly easy to learn Python after coding Ruby for a year. Have fun!

Re: Python is now the most popular introductory language at top U.S. universities

#79

Post by lmm »

EpicEng wrote: post #45
Igglyboo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to read and it just makes more sense when someone only knows English. I could show this to my 80 year old grandmother and have her understand what it does with minimal help on my part. word_list = ["hat", "dog", "cat"] for word in word_list: print(word) The same example in Java isn't extremely hard to understand, but it definitely is a decent jump in complexity from the almost plain English syntax of Python…

Who cares? If I'm a teacher I don't want to have to update material extensively every semester / year because the language is changing rapidly. Three are plenty of good, stable languages to use.

Java is about as stable as it gets; that foreach syntax is ten years old. And if your teaching material stuck to the old-style syntax it wouldn't be wrong, it would still work, it's just not as readable as the new style.

Re: Python is now the most popular introductory language at top U.S. universities

#80

Post by lmm »

fjh wrote: post #20
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your name Bob Harper? :) Functional still isn't that popular, in spite of a few vocal supporters. Even MIT went from scheme to Python for their sicp training.

Many of the better European universities teach FP languages in their introductory courses. Off the top of my head, Oxford and Edinburgh use Haskell and Cambridge teaches Ocaml.

Cambridge teaches SML, not OCaml, unless it's changed in the last couple of years.
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