Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why MIT switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

wisdomandwonder.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 249 posts

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

#81

Post by zelphirkalt »

kstrauser wrote: post #40
90s_dev wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, if you learn computer science well enough to thoroughly understand Scheme, I don't think it'll take more than a few weeks during the summer to learn Python.

I disagree. You can learn the language itself pretty quickly. Finding your way through the expansive standard library will take longer. Getting a good handle on the package ecosystem is a lifetime learning project.

Those are things though, that you can easily make up for, for the most part, with good web search skills, or these days, AI prompting skills.

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

#82

Post by Jtsummers »

ajkjk wrote: post #77
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #14

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 a…

I think it's absurd to start with Scheme. A graduate who knows Python but not Scheme has a hope of doing something with computer science. A graduate who knows Scheme but not Python is basically unable to use computers at a technical level. The only choices here are "Python" or "Scheme + Python". (Yes, of course, they could teach themselves Python at that point---but if we're talking about things that people can teach…

> I think it's absurd to start with Scheme. A graduate who knows Python but not Scheme has a hope of doing something with computer science. A graduate who knows Scheme but not Python is basically unable to use computers at a technical level.

What language you start with and what languages you know on graduating are going to be different. It takes 4 years to get through most bachelors programs (without taking summer terms, very high course loads, or coming in with a bunch of transfer credits). It's no more absurd to start with Scheme than to start with Python when there are at least 7 semesters remaining to learn more.

If a graduate only knows what they learned in CS 1, they aren't a CS graduate even if they got that slip of paper. They conned the school, or the school conned them.

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

#83

Post by SL61 »

90s_dev wrote: post #35
SoftTalker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To be fair, if you learn computer science well enough to thoroughly understand Scheme, I don't think it'll take more than a few weeks during the summer to learn Python.

One of the big shifts in academia over the past couple decades is that, for any number of reasons, students today are less likely to self-study or tinker outside of classes and internships. The increased prevalence of basic bootcamp-style classes like "Let's Build a Rails App" in CS programs is because departments can no longer assume that students will explore things like that in their spare time.

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

#84

Post by trothamel »

acuozzo wrote: post #49
kstrauser wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. You can learn the language itself pretty quickly. Finding your way through the expansive standard library will take longer. Getting a good handle on the package ecosystem is a lifetime learning project.

Knowing your way around the ecosystem of one programming language does not build up the intuition necessary for identifying O(n²) (or worse!) algorithms and choosing/writing O(log(n)) (or better!) ones instead. Computer Science has little to do with science, but what it teaches you is certainly closer to science than just building a huge mental index for a bunch of work done by other people. There's certainly value i…

> Knowing your way around the ecosystem of one programming language does not build up the intuition necessary for identifying O(n²) (or worse!) algorithms and choosing/writing O(log(n)) (or better!) ones instead.

I'll disagree with this, at least in terms of Scheme versus Python.

Python is visually close enough to other languages that the skills you develop to quickly see O(n²) algorithms easily transfer to many other languages. Scheme is very different visually, and so the intuition doesn't transfer as well. Sure, it's possible your intuition is wrong, but when scanning a program intuition can help in the first pass.

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

#85

Post by Izikiel43 »

simpaticoder wrote: post #56
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When this kind of switch was happening in CS departments, as a graduate student I was part of a "movement" that advocated for switching away from things like Scheme to Python for introductory classes in my elite CS institution. (We focused on other things as well such as more interdisciplinary research, which was where I was more passionate, but that's a separate matter.) My reasoning at the time in this order was: 1…

> Once you learn Scheme, well now you've learned Scheme. There is something really joyful in learning a new language and then implementing a well-known protocol, like HTTP, in that language. You can pick either the agent or server side, and check your work with other well-known agents and servers. In my experience this tends to happen when students like the language they've just learned, regardless of the direction t…

> There is something really joyful in learning a new language and then implementing a well-known protocol, like HTTP, in that language.

That's probably the minority of students though

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

#86

Post by jerrycruncher »

morkalork wrote: post #13
anthk wrote: post #2

Scheme it's far easier to grasp. With SICP you basically rewrite a Scheme within a Scheme. And you teach Calculus to the interpreter to solve further problems. Online SICP: http://sarabander.github.io/sicp/

I fondly remember doing a course in my CS degree that was basically working through SICP as a class, taught my an ancient but very fun and enthusiastic tenured professor. When he retired I think the curriculum was updated to JavaScript (??) or as the new professor called it "scheme in drag". I'm glad to have taken the original course..

Honestly, the new professor wasn't too far off. I've often referred to "The Little Schemer" as "the best javascript book that isn't about javascript."

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

#87

Post by cs_throwaway »

mrexroad wrote: post #8

Ga Tech used to teach Scheme as an intro to CS course. I vividly remember sitting in lecture and being struck w/ the implications of functional programming as the professor said you could pass functions into functions and modify them. It was as formative of a moment as my 2nd Grade teacher showing us a really complex looking (at the time) rainbow flower in LOGO (she had one of few color Mac classic), and showing us i…

It is possible that this doesn't work anymore.

I distinctly recall the following episode when I last taught intro CS in Scheme: I revealed first-class functions. After lecture, the brightest kid in class came up to me and said something to the effect of, "What's the big deal? You can do this in Python."

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

#88

Post by eggdaft »

KenSF wrote: post #32

The move away from Scheme has always saddened me. The first thing we learned in 6.001 was abstraction and invariance. These are still the core of writing good software. I still use these principles every day. There is a purity to Scheme. It is a beautiful light-weight language anyone can learn over a weekend. It does nothing magical for you which means you get to / have to build everything you want and you must under…

I agree. I was taught Scheme and I later taught it. It was a much cleaner and suitable language for teaching computer science than Python. Students could completely understand the language and how it worked by the end of a semester.

Scheme is much closer to mathematics, which made it much more suitable for teaching strong mathematicians arriving without coding experience. It also made the hackers more rigorous and broadened their minds from the imperative "do this then that" mindset.

There's a notable difference between those first taught scheme and those first taught Python. Of course, both can go on to learning Python or FP or whatever. But that foundation needs to be there to teach truly great coding for most mortals.

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

#89

Post by shawn_w »

AlanYx wrote: post #17

There's probably a middle ground somewhere. IMHO, SICP leans a little too heavily on the homoiconicity of Scheme for its choice of exercises. Which is intellectually nifty but it could also include exercises from something like Crafting Interpreters (Nystrom) where you would build up step-by-step to an interpreter of a non-Scheme-like language, using Scheme.

Eh, being able to skip parsing allows a fairly short book to spend more time on its real focus than it otherwise would.

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

#90

Post by vouaobrasil »

nextos wrote: post #41
SoftTalker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I always found this to be a shortsighted complaint. Getting exposed to languages where computation models are clear gives you an excellent background to switch to the language du jour and become a master. Going through e.g. HtDP or CTM makes it easy to transition to Python and write excellent code, whereas traversing the opposite path is going to be tough.

I don't agree with that. I think Python is a better first language. The better students will get through the program just fine, especially if they really want to learn computer science in depth. And the average ones will at least learn something useful.
Post reply on HN