4 ms·

That is seriously impressive. How many universities get the creator of a language in to teach you how to use it?

by thebluesky 14y ago

bartonfink 14y ago
The big one that comes to mind is Stroustrop at Texas A&M.
- zackzackzack 14y ago
  Which is sort of an odd situation. I took a CS intro class at Texas A&M there and he came in at the end of the semester to talk more about C++11x. So he ended up going off about support for threading and things that were way over most people's heads and how the language was getting all of these new features. From a university standpoint, every intro CS class is C++ for the most part. There is some Java thrown in, and maybe some Python, but all of the algorithms/data structures, really the meat of the basic CS education, is all in C++ because of him. Other professors do some of their research in C++ mainly because they can just walk down the hall and ask him questions about the language if need be. I think for grad students he would be an awesome resource to have. For the undergraduates, he has cast a strong and complex shadow on the department. The environment has become you learn C++ and then go into the Oil/Engineering/Accounting industry. No major point here, just reflecting on the topic of "Stroustrop at TAMU"
- elviejo 14y ago
  Bertrand Meyer creator of Eiffel teaches at ETH Zurich
noelwelsh 14y ago
Note that Martin Odersky is a Professor at EPFL. So it's not like they got him in teach Scala -- he already works there and naturally wants to teach a course on programming using the language he designed.
evanelias 14y ago
It's impressive, but also unusual, which makes sense: most language-specific courses tend to be geared towards beginners / people who are relatively new to programming in general. Some language developers are great teachers, so they make excellent instructors for an introductory course. But I wouldn't say this quality is universal, much like how many respected CS professors/researchers aren't so great at teaching. Not commenting on Odersky in particular, since I'm not sufficiently familiar with him, besides the white Scala book. I will say though that course description claiming Scala "provides the core infrastructure" for my employer is a small overstatement. We definitely use it for some important services, and continue to use it for new projects, but it isn't accurate to imply it's the dominant language in our codebase.
nl 14y ago
How many universities get the creator of a language in to teach you how to use it? I think that is why lots of people are attracted to working at Google (Pike, Thompson, van Rossum, Bloch, etc)
Q6T46nT668w6i3m 14y ago
Ross Ihaka, coauthor of R, is an Associate Professor of Statistics at University of Auckland.

That is seriously impressive. How many universities get the creator of a language in to teach you how to use it?

bartonfink 14y ago

The big one that comes to mind is Stroustrop at Texas A&M.

zackzackzack 14y ago
Which is sort of an odd situation. I took a CS intro class at Texas A&M there and he came in at the end of the semester to talk more about C++11x. So he ended up going off about support for threading and things that were way over most people's heads and how the language was getting all of these new features. From a university standpoint, every intro CS class is C++ for the most part. There is some Java thrown in, and maybe some Python, but all of the algorithms/data structures, really the meat of the basic CS education, is all in C++ because of him. Other professors do some of their research in C++ mainly because they can just walk down the hall and ask him questions about the language if need be. I think for grad students he would be an awesome resource to have. For the undergraduates, he has cast a strong and complex shadow on the department. The environment has become you learn C++ and then go into the Oil/Engineering/Accounting industry. No major point here, just reflecting on the topic of "Stroustrop at TAMU"
elviejo 14y ago
Bertrand Meyer creator of Eiffel teaches at ETH Zurich

noelwelsh 14y ago

Note that Martin Odersky is a Professor at EPFL. So it's not like they got him in teach Scala -- he already works there and naturally wants to teach a course on programming using the language he designed.

evanelias 14y ago

It's impressive, but also unusual, which makes sense: most language-specific courses tend to be geared towards beginners / people who are relatively new to programming in general. Some language developers are great teachers, so they make excellent instructors for an introductory course. But I wouldn't say this quality is universal, much like how many respected CS professors/researchers aren't so great at teaching. Not commenting on Odersky in particular, since I'm not sufficiently familiar with him, besides the white Scala book. I will say though that course description claiming Scala "provides the core infrastructure" for my employer is a small overstatement. We definitely use it for some important services, and continue to use it for new projects, but it isn't accurate to imply it's the dominant language in our codebase.

nl 14y ago

How many universities get the creator of a language in to teach you how to use it? I think that is why lots of people are attracted to working at Google (Pike, Thompson, van Rossum, Bloch, etc)

Q6T46nT668w6i3m 14y ago

Ross Ihaka, coauthor of R, is an Associate Professor of Statistics at University of Auckland.