16 ms·
We also live in an era where it's basically impossible that kids getting into MIT's CS program haven't been exposed to programming before. I think it's a romant
by habitue 8y ago
We also live in an era where it's basically impossible that kids getting into MIT's CS program haven't been exposed to programming before. I think it's a romantic idea, but the fact is college isn't where you learn to program, it's where you learn the time complexity of btrees.
- mroche 8y ago> it's where you learn the time complexity of btrees. I’m having flashbacks... Thanks for that ;) Time complexity was my worst CS topic. At least, for implementing the most efficient system. I’m not an algorithms guy.
- Zanni 8y agoThis is a really significant point. I mean, I love SICP. I think Scheme is elegant as hell. But I learned to program with Basic in high school, and SICP in Scheme would have seemed like a huge step backward. I know Fortran did, which was my first college-level experience. I can appreciate Scheme now, but I don't think I would have then. And I can only imagine how "kids today," who have grown up on real languages would feel ("real" in contrast to Basic, not Scheme).