3 ms·

I really hate the concept of "weed out" courses. That is the opposite if what colleges should be doing. We had plenty of them in the sciences almost 30 years ag

I really hate the concept of "weed out" courses. That is the opposite if what colleges should be doing. We had plenty of them in the sciences almost 30 years ago when I started. We need to make everyone welcome in sciences, not weed people out with overly complex 101 courses. We had Haskell in college too, almost 30 years ago, and even then it was one of the hardest courses at school. This was before IO monad, just as the language was being created in the early 90s.

alkonaut 7y ago
To be clear: I don't think anyone actually dropped out because of a tiny Haskell class. A lot of people did drop out because they hated math and failed the first couple of courses.
auggierose 7y ago
Anyone who cannot do a Haskell class probably shouldn't become a software engineer. Better software that way.
- tome 7y ago
  Seems a bit harsh.
  - tasuki 7y ago
    Of course it's harsh! But perhaps also true?
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      Or perhaps not so true. I believe (based on exactly zero hard data) that FP fits the way some peoples' minds work, and procedural fits how other (many more) peoples' minds work. The ability to pass a Haskell class is not the same as the ability to program competently in at least one language.
- dllthomas 7y ago
  Let's accept your basic premise, that it provides a meaningfully strong positive filter. We only get better software if the people who don't pass the class proceed to not write software, as opposed to writing software anyway without the training available in the following courses (and presumably writing worse software) or being replaced in industry by others who could not have passed that filter. If neither of those happens then we presumably will have better software. We will also have less software. It's not clear whether that trade-off is the right one.
pjmlp 7y ago
Life is full of weed out exercises. I managed to get through some of them, was weed out from others. That's life.

alkonaut 7y ago

To be clear: I don't think anyone actually dropped out because of a tiny Haskell class. A lot of people did drop out because they hated math and failed the first couple of courses.

auggierose 7y ago

Anyone who cannot do a Haskell class probably shouldn't become a software engineer. Better software that way.

tome 7y ago
Seems a bit harsh.
- tasuki 7y ago
  Of course it's harsh! But perhaps also true?
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Or perhaps not so true. I believe (based on exactly zero hard data) that FP fits the way some peoples' minds work, and procedural fits how other (many more) peoples' minds work. The ability to pass a Haskell class is not the same as the ability to program competently in at least one language.
dllthomas 7y ago
Let's accept your basic premise, that it provides a meaningfully strong positive filter. We only get better software if the people who don't pass the class proceed to not write software, as opposed to writing software anyway without the training available in the following courses (and presumably writing worse software) or being replaced in industry by others who could not have passed that filter. If neither of those happens then we presumably will have better software. We will also have less software. It's not clear whether that trade-off is the right one.

pjmlp 7y ago

Life is full of weed out exercises. I managed to get through some of them, was weed out from others. That's life.