Why MIT Switched from Scheme to Python (2009)

Re:Why MIT Switched from Scheme to Python (2009) by taeric on Friday April 21, 2017 @04:44PM (#14169292)

My favorite thing having finally taken a dive into lisp and SICP, is not that it is very friendly to functional. It is that it is very friendly to showing how it all works.

My favorite section is where they go over making a constraint based system that will either calculate degrees F or degrees C. Or validate that the two given values are accurate. All depending on what you have entered. And this is done from the ground up. No hidden magic of the system has to support you, by and large. (Not strictly true, as this does make use of GC and such throughout.)

If you hadn't seen it, https://www.infoq.com/presentations/We-Really-Dont-Know-How-... is a great video showing Sussman's style. He also showcases a program they wrote that could solve circuits based on this general idea.

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Re:Why MIT Switched from Scheme to Python (2009) by mrcsparker on Friday April 21, 2017 @11:05PM (#14170912)

Thank you so much for linking this video. I had no idea it existed. Watching that lecture was so much fun.

I wish that there was a camera pointing to the crowd when he said the more controversial things.

I didn't know that Sussman hired Stallman. Their work changed our lives.

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Re:Why MIT Switched from Scheme to Python (2009) by gavinpc on Saturday April 22, 2017 @12:28AM (#14171115)

This is excerpted (as the "technology" segment) of another great video, Bret Victor's "Humane Representation of Thought." (at about thirty minutes in)

https://vimeo.com/115154289

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