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I think it's very common in discussions like this for people to conflate 'Python vs Scheme' with from-first-principles (lambdas, explicit recursion) vs building
by kbp 8y ago
I think it's very common in discussions like this for people to conflate
'Python vs Scheme' with from-first-principles (lambdas, explicit recursion) vs
building-real-things as pedagogical approaches. In a lot of people's minds,
Python is its standard library and Scheme is explicitly cdring down lists.
I think the problem is that SICP's pedagogical approach (which people confuse
with the language Scheme) is, in a way, pretty close to starting with
assembler. You spend a lot of time exploring computation (with lambdas as your
basis) at a very low level before you graduate to anything that feels "real"
or practical.
- smadge 8y agoI agree. Learning python requires learning the various data structures that are built in to the language (list, dict, set, classes) and learning the various control structures (if, for, while, etc). These are initially black boxes that a student has to take for granted. On the other end of the pedological spectrum you can start with how to define an abstract data structure and function application as a rewrite system then build up the rest of the lambguage from scratch.