4 ms·

You don't believe in using the right tool for the job? In learning a variety of paradigms? Perhaps we have misunderstood each other. I'm not pushing Scheme or

You don't believe in using the right tool for the job? In learning a variety of paradigms? Perhaps we have misunderstood each other. I'm not pushing Scheme or the metacircular evaluator as the totality of theoretical or applied computer science. My interest is entirely in the educational value of building a REPL versus, say, a robotic control system. MIT has a lot of robotics opportunities from clubs to IAP (winter term) competitions to UROPs (undergrad research). MIT doesn't have a lot of REPL building opportunities. In fact, I believe it is possible with the new curriculum to graduate from MIT with a degree in CS and have never built a REPL or a compiler. That seems a little... misguided. I don't rail against this change because I mourn Scheme or hate Python. I rail against this change because I feel it fundamentally weakens the quality of an MIT CS education.

menloparkbum 17y ago
In fact, I believe it is possible with the new curriculum to graduate from MIT with a degree in CS and have never built a REPL or a compiler Hasn't this been the case since at least 1999?
- silentOpen 17y ago
  6.001 was required and at least walked you through the construction of a metacircular evaluator. While this isn't building a compiler or interpreter (Scheme cheats), it seems to be more than we have now. :-(
ubernostrum 17y ago
I rail against the railing because, frankly, so much of it consists of "how dare anyone call themselves a programmer if they didn't build their own Lisp from scratch in 6.001!" This simply is not a useful approach. And, honestly, as a working programmer there are lots of things that aren't compilers or REPLs that I can think of, all of which would be at least as useful for students to have experience with, and none of which are, so far as I know, part of MIT's or anyone else's curriculum. But I manage to live with that, rather than demanding that MIT build a curriculum around what I happen to think is important. (and, honestly? I still feel like Scheme is the derivatives-by-limits approach to programming -- yeah, you can do it that way your whole life, but that doesn't mean you should)

menloparkbum 17y ago

In fact, I believe it is possible with the new curriculum to graduate from MIT with a degree in CS and have never built a REPL or a compiler Hasn't this been the case since at least 1999?

silentOpen 17y ago
6.001 was required and at least walked you through the construction of a metacircular evaluator. While this isn't building a compiler or interpreter (Scheme cheats), it seems to be more than we have now. :-(

ubernostrum 17y ago

I rail against the railing because, frankly, so much of it consists of "how dare anyone call themselves a programmer if they didn't build their own Lisp from scratch in 6.001!" This simply is not a useful approach. And, honestly, as a working programmer there are lots of things that aren't compilers or REPLs that I can think of, all of which would be at least as useful for students to have experience with, and none of which are, so far as I know, part of MIT's or anyone else's curriculum. But I manage to live with that, rather than demanding that MIT build a curriculum around what I happen to think is important. (and, honestly? I still feel like Scheme is the derivatives-by-limits approach to programming -- yeah, you can do it that way your whole life, but that doesn't mean you should)