Re: peasant revolt against DrScheme!

[Leo Razoumov <lrazoumov@qualcomm.com>]

I think that at least in this forum PLT people are the most qualified and
experienced in teaching introductory courses in programming. Choosing Scheme,
I guess, was, therefore, not an accident. 

Regarding Caltech (other universities as well) freshmen student pro C/C++
revolts one should remember one thing: majority of them (the ones who protest
most loudly) likely have already gotten some exposure to C/C++ languages during
their high school years.  They just might not want to learn "yet another
language" which from their prespective has no practical value.

I would be more interested to see the results of similar survey among Caltech
graduates (MS, Ph.D. level) whether Scheme class was any use to them.

Very often, as a person's knowledge and experience matures the former believes
got reevaluated, quite often, up to a complete reversal. 

I recall that during my freshmen years (early 80-es) in a Russian University we
had a similar revolt against Knuth's MIX assembler. We, at least, had a point:
there were neither MIX interpreter nor compiler we could use.  The argument our
prof. was making that if one understands a algorithm well enough one can code it
in any reasonable language. Unfortunately, we won and got a real boring course
in FORTRAN sintax instead (by some other person).  I wish I never said a single
word about MIX:-)

--Leo

>>>>> "MF" == Matthias Felleisen <matthias@cs.rice.edu> writes:

    MF> Okay, in all honesty, I suspect that *most* people who teach introductory
    MF> programming do a bad job. They teach syntax and little else. It is
    MF> certainly true in Rice's C/C++ programming course. If you were to put a gun
    MF> to my head and force me to teach a C/C++ course (or Java), I could do a
    MF> much better job than they do. I would translate HtDP into this {->*&!--};
    MF> language and teach these kids some good stuff. But do I want to? No way! 
    MF> I think I'd rather wait for you to pull the trigger :-)

    MF> -- Matthias

    MF>    From: Brent Fulgham <brent.fulgham@xpsystems.com>
    MF>    Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 16:18:27 -0800

    >> But, even our hard-core systems faculty members who kind of
    >> agreed with the engineering school and who taught this second
    >> course several times came to me and told me that Scheme/HtDP
    >> students were better prepared for the C/C++ course than C/C++
    >> students. 
    >> 

    MF>    That's pretty interesting.

    MF>    Mike and I have often forwarded each other particularly amusing
    MF>    reviews of "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs"
    MF>    from the Amazon.com web site.

    MF>    Every fall there is a new group of 1-star reviews with arguments
    MF>    along the lines of the Cal Tech student's complaints.

    MF>    Thanks,

    MF>    -Brent