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> Java as a first language pushed on new CS students has caused untold damage to the industry. I'd argue that the true Dark Times™ were the days before Java. F

> Java as a first language pushed on new CS students has caused untold damage to the industry. I'd argue that the true Dark Times™ were the days before Java. Forcing students to write Scheme or C as intro languages was far worse. These days, I'd say something like Python to get the basic concepts down and then moving on to things like Rust or Go then Java, C++, or C# are probably better moves.

e3bc54b2 4y ago
I get resistance to C, it is quite simple and straightforward language, but pointers aren't for beginners. But hey, scheme is nice. No manual memory management, as simple as it comes syntax, very little to get started, excellent REPL, if it were in my power, I'd go back to college and have my first programming class in Scheme.
- BeefWellington 4y ago
  > But hey, scheme is nice. No manual memory management, as simple as it comes syntax, very little to get started, excellent REPL, if it were in my power, I'd go back to college and have my first programming class in Scheme. I'd argue that C-style syntax has largely (though not completely) won out. Python is a departure from this for sure, as well as various functional languages, but Scheme and other LISP languages are an order of magnitude more different. The basics like function definitions, not actually quoting both ends of strings in all cases, etc. It's just very different than basically the rest of the languages out there. This alone makes learning with Scheme to start not really better than what this thread is about -- complaints about the way BlueJ was pushed in university to have next to no real-world applicability. Yes, you can get jobs writing Scheme and you can write productive applications. However, you're going to be a step behind everyone else trying to figure out C or C++ for the first time and those syntax semantics matter a great deal when they're essentially reused in 80-90% of other languages out there. Also, in the pre-Java days "excellent REPL" wasn't really common, so you're really comparing more modern versions and what we have today to the times before Java sort of became the de facto "intro to programming" language. Sure, it has some pros but I think it was a mistake to make it the intro to CS language of choice, even over something like BASIC or Delphi. In my professional life the closest I've come to needing to write Scheme is in working with LDAP queries.
BeFlatXIII 4y ago
As someone who learned lisp-like languages well after "baby's first program", what places Scheme in the same group as C in terms of "even worse than Java for n00bs"?
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e3bc54b2 4y ago

I get resistance to C, it is quite simple and straightforward language, but pointers aren't for beginners. But hey, scheme is nice. No manual memory management, as simple as it comes syntax, very little to get started, excellent REPL, if it were in my power, I'd go back to college and have my first programming class in Scheme.

BeefWellington 4y ago
> But hey, scheme is nice. No manual memory management, as simple as it comes syntax, very little to get started, excellent REPL, if it were in my power, I'd go back to college and have my first programming class in Scheme. I'd argue that C-style syntax has largely (though not completely) won out. Python is a departure from this for sure, as well as various functional languages, but Scheme and other LISP languages are an order of magnitude more different. The basics like function definitions, not actually quoting both ends of strings in all cases, etc. It's just very different than basically the rest of the languages out there. This alone makes learning with Scheme to start not really better than what this thread is about -- complaints about the way BlueJ was pushed in university to have next to no real-world applicability. Yes, you can get jobs writing Scheme and you can write productive applications. However, you're going to be a step behind everyone else trying to figure out C or C++ for the first time and those syntax semantics matter a great deal when they're essentially reused in 80-90% of other languages out there. Also, in the pre-Java days "excellent REPL" wasn't really common, so you're really comparing more modern versions and what we have today to the times before Java sort of became the de facto "intro to programming" language. Sure, it has some pros but I think it was a mistake to make it the intro to CS language of choice, even over something like BASIC or Delphi. In my professional life the closest I've come to needing to write Scheme is in working with LDAP queries.

BeFlatXIII 4y ago

As someone who learned lisp-like languages well after "baby's first program", what places Scheme in the same group as C in terms of "even worse than Java for n00bs"?

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