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I've been wondering lately whether MIT's approach of starting with Scheme has any lasting impact on students. After almost a decade of coding, I'm finally grasp

by epall 17y ago

I've been wondering lately whether MIT's approach of starting with Scheme has any lasting impact on students. After almost a decade of coding, I'm finally grasping the power of Lisp, but I wonder if I'd started with a Lisp would I have gotten here sooner? Does it help or hinder students to learn something as alien as Lisp for their first language in college?

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
rev_null 17y ago
Lisp is only alien if you've learned another programming language first. I went to a school that started students on Java. Excessive syntax seemed to bog down a lot of students early on. It seems to me like scheme is the perfect language to start students on because it has one consistent syntax.