6 ms·

Sounds like Berkeley are making a huge mistake and losing sight of what a University is there for. They seem to have moved to a more practical approach than the

by SeanDav 14y ago

Sounds like Berkeley are making a huge mistake and losing sight of what a University is there for. They seem to have moved to a more practical approach than theoretical approach. This is the type of approach that is more appropriate to a Technical College than a major University. This new approach almost seems like teaching civil engineers how to weld and rivet in order to build bridges, rather than deeply understanding the mathematical theory behind stress and vectors.

calinet6 14y ago
Yes, I think they're moving in that direction. The intro courses, while in Python, still use many of the concepts and text of SICP, so it's not all gone. Many of the concepts translate well, and it's not the end of the world or even a slippery slope—I think that would be overreacting. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with using a newer and more useful language to teach these concepts—after all, as Harvey always said, the language doesn't really matter. However, it's conceding to rationality just slightly, and you're right, a University, especially Berkeley in my mind, is a place where you're free to learn concepts and think theoretically without needing to find a real-world application for at least a couple years. They should keep that as a core value, and I certainly hope they do even as they use more modern languages.
steveklabnik 14y ago
s/Berkeley/most universities in the States/
- obviouslygreen 14y ago
  Honest interest from someone who doesn't know: While I know this is happening at least some other places in the US (it happened to the one I went to and to at least one a friend attended), is it largely limited to this country, or are other countries seeing similar issues?
  - pimeys 14y ago
    My university (Helsinki University of Technology) changed the freshman course from SICP to Java in the beginning of the century. The reason was Nokia, who wanted Java programmers straight from the school. Nowadays they're using Python. I'm very disappointed I didn't have a chance to study that course. I read the book last year and did some exercises by my own. I never had so much fun with any CS book than I had with SICP.
    - obviouslygreen 14y ago
      Thanks for the input. I just started learning Clojure and it's blowing my mind... I felt sorry for some friends in college that started with Scheme but now I'm realizing I missed something pretty beneficial.
    - dscrd 14y ago
      Nokia. That company just keeps giving. Some universities in Finland fell into that very same trap a second time and moved towards the holy triad of C#, .Net and Windows Phone. Utter shortsighted idiocy
      - kartturi 13y ago
        It is the difference between encouraging plasticity (true creativity, etc.) and indoctrination (control), the latter which is considered must, when cranking out armies of soldiers, clerks and corporate programmers.
- saraid216 14y ago
  It's also not just CS, though CS is the largest culprit because well... software is eating the world. No one cares about getting an education. They just want a job.
  - coliveira 14y ago
    But there are still areas, lets say for example civil engineering, where you need to know about building materials, some physics and math to do your job. In CS, on the other hand, if you know how to put together a few web pages in Python and solve half a dozen brain teasers you may get a job in a very good company.
    - saraid216 14y ago
      You're missing my point, which was about priority order. Most people are going to college hoping to get a job. They're learning because they're told they have to learn, so they do a bad job learning. In a field like civil engineering, you can't graduate unless you pass classes that are simply unpassable without learning some stuff. (I have a friend going through aerodynamics right now and I'm hearing about everything he's learning.) This is kind of a microcosmic version of what we're seeing in general: we see people as workers first and human beings second. The universities and the kids are following suit.
      - derefr 14y ago
        We created elementary schools. The children who attended them surpassed their peers. Employers began to require them as a signal of competence. Eventually, being such a "universal good", elementary education became a public service of the state. Then we created secondary/"grammar" schools. The children who attended them surpassed their peers, who had only attended elementary school. Employers began to require a secondary-school education as a signal of competence. Eventually, being such a "universal good", secondary education became a public service of the state. Then we created universities... --- Although the inductive step is valid, there's a problem in the assumptions: we already had universities for thousands of years before the introduction of elementary or secondary education! The traditional "liberal education" of The University, where the upper-class and the cunning go to cloister themselves with one-another and thus boost their mutual productivity in all sorts of status-signalling arts (sounds sort of like TED, doesn't it?) has come crashing head-first into the rising bar of minimum-expected human competence. Success in secondary school no longer tells you anything about a person's class or cunning, and that's forced employers to look for increasingly-lofty-and-meaningless trust-signals. So "everyone who's anyone" expects to go to university now, from the spoilt valley-girl to the farm bumpkin. Perhaps, in the end, if we want to preserve the "usefulness" of university, we'll chop off the undergraduate portion of it and call that "tertiary school" or something. Everyone gets to go, it occurs at community colleges, probably most of the material comes from Khan Academy and the like. Then the rich and the cunning can go to The University after that.
No1 14y ago
Does MIT even use Scheme for their intro CS courses anymore? Harvey's article makes it sound like they switched to Python when they went from a "curriculum organized around topics" to a "curriculum organized around applications" - it seems to be the trend everywhere.
- gnosis 14y ago
  MIT did indeed switch from Scheme to Python for their introductory courses (though I've heard they still use Scheme in some more advanced courses).[1][2] However, I recall that a little later some MIT graduate students started teaching their own version of the classic SICP-based course. I can't seem to find a link to it now, unfortunately. I wonder how that turned out, and if they're still teaching it now. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=602307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=602307 [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=530605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=530605
  - tjr 14y ago
    There's a variant of 6.001 that's taught in January IAP sessions: http://web.mit.edu/alexmv/6.S184/ http://web.mit.edu/alexmv/6.S184/
  - ibrahima 14y ago
    Brian Harvey was also teaching his own version of the old CS61A last I heard, but he may be retiring after this year. (I've been hearing about him retiring pretty much since I started at Berkeley 5 years ago, for what it's worth).
- hga 14y ago
  Actually switched entirely to Python and Java. In theory a lot of SICP is taught in the 6.005 Elements of Software Construction course, but since it uses Java, to use Pauli's phrase, for that purpose it's not even wrong.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Northeastern still uses Scheme, but I'm not sure who else does. A real shame.
ycy 14y ago
Nope, scheme is still being taught in the "Python class". The final project is writing a Scheme interpreter in Python, so students still get to learn Scheme. http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/sp13/projects/scheme/scheme.html http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/sp13/projects/schem...

by SeanDav 14y ago

calinet6 14y ago

Yes, I think they're moving in that direction. The intro courses, while in Python, still use many of the concepts and text of SICP, so it's not all gone. Many of the concepts translate well, and it's not the end of the world or even a slippery slope—I think that would be overreacting. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with using a newer and more useful language to teach these concepts—after all, as Harvey always said, the language doesn't really matter. However, it's conceding to rationality just slightly, and you're right, a University, especially Berkeley in my mind, is a place where you're free to learn concepts and think theoretically without needing to find a real-world application for at least a couple years. They should keep that as a core value, and I certainly hope they do even as they use more modern languages.

steveklabnik 14y ago

s/Berkeley/most universities in the States/

obviouslygreen 14y ago
Honest interest from someone who doesn't know: While I know this is happening at least some other places in the US (it happened to the one I went to and to at least one a friend attended), is it largely limited to this country, or are other countries seeing similar issues?
- pimeys 14y ago
  My university (Helsinki University of Technology) changed the freshman course from SICP to Java in the beginning of the century. The reason was Nokia, who wanted Java programmers straight from the school. Nowadays they're using Python. I'm very disappointed I didn't have a chance to study that course. I read the book last year and did some exercises by my own. I never had so much fun with any CS book than I had with SICP.
  - obviouslygreen 14y ago
    Thanks for the input. I just started learning Clojure and it's blowing my mind... I felt sorry for some friends in college that started with Scheme but now I'm realizing I missed something pretty beneficial.
  - dscrd 14y ago
    Nokia. That company just keeps giving. Some universities in Finland fell into that very same trap a second time and moved towards the holy triad of C#, .Net and Windows Phone. Utter shortsighted idiocy
    - kartturi 13y ago
      It is the difference between encouraging plasticity (true creativity, etc.) and indoctrination (control), the latter which is considered must, when cranking out armies of soldiers, clerks and corporate programmers.
saraid216 14y ago
It's also not just CS, though CS is the largest culprit because well... software is eating the world. No one cares about getting an education. They just want a job.
- coliveira 14y ago
  But there are still areas, lets say for example civil engineering, where you need to know about building materials, some physics and math to do your job. In CS, on the other hand, if you know how to put together a few web pages in Python and solve half a dozen brain teasers you may get a job in a very good company.
  - saraid216 14y ago
    You're missing my point, which was about priority order. Most people are going to college hoping to get a job. They're learning because they're told they have to learn, so they do a bad job learning. In a field like civil engineering, you can't graduate unless you pass classes that are simply unpassable without learning some stuff. (I have a friend going through aerodynamics right now and I'm hearing about everything he's learning.) This is kind of a microcosmic version of what we're seeing in general: we see people as workers first and human beings second. The universities and the kids are following suit.
    - derefr 14y ago
      We created elementary schools. The children who attended them surpassed their peers. Employers began to require them as a signal of competence. Eventually, being such a "universal good", elementary education became a public service of the state. Then we created secondary/"grammar" schools. The children who attended them surpassed their peers, who had only attended elementary school. Employers began to require a secondary-school education as a signal of competence. Eventually, being such a "universal good", secondary education became a public service of the state. Then we created universities... --- Although the inductive step is valid, there's a problem in the assumptions: we already had universities for thousands of years before the introduction of elementary or secondary education! The traditional "liberal education" of The University, where the upper-class and the cunning go to cloister themselves with one-another and thus boost their mutual productivity in all sorts of status-signalling arts (sounds sort of like TED, doesn't it?) has come crashing head-first into the rising bar of minimum-expected human competence. Success in secondary school no longer tells you anything about a person's class or cunning, and that's forced employers to look for increasingly-lofty-and-meaningless trust-signals. So "everyone who's anyone" expects to go to university now, from the spoilt valley-girl to the farm bumpkin. Perhaps, in the end, if we want to preserve the "usefulness" of university, we'll chop off the undergraduate portion of it and call that "tertiary school" or something. Everyone gets to go, it occurs at community colleges, probably most of the material comes from Khan Academy and the like. Then the rich and the cunning can go to The University after that.

No1 14y ago

Does MIT even use Scheme for their intro CS courses anymore? Harvey's article makes it sound like they switched to Python when they went from a "curriculum organized around topics" to a "curriculum organized around applications" - it seems to be the trend everywhere.

gnosis 14y ago
MIT did indeed switch from Scheme to Python for their introductory courses (though I've heard they still use Scheme in some more advanced courses).[1][2] However, I recall that a little later some MIT graduate students started teaching their own version of the classic SICP-based course. I can't seem to find a link to it now, unfortunately. I wonder how that turned out, and if they're still teaching it now. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=602307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=602307 [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=530605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=530605
- tjr 14y ago
  There's a variant of 6.001 that's taught in January IAP sessions: http://web.mit.edu/alexmv/6.S184/ http://web.mit.edu/alexmv/6.S184/
- ibrahima 14y ago
  Brian Harvey was also teaching his own version of the old CS61A last I heard, but he may be retiring after this year. (I've been hearing about him retiring pretty much since I started at Berkeley 5 years ago, for what it's worth).
hga 14y ago
Actually switched entirely to Python and Java. In theory a lot of SICP is taught in the 6.005 Elements of Software Construction course, but since it uses Java, to use Pauli's phrase, for that purpose it's not even wrong.
jlgreco 14y ago
Northeastern still uses Scheme, but I'm not sure who else does. A real shame.

ycy 14y ago

Nope, scheme is still being taught in the "Python class". The final project is writing a Scheme interpreter in Python, so students still get to learn Scheme. http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/sp13/projects/scheme/scheme.html http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/sp13/projects/schem...