Why MIT uses Python instead of Scheme for its undergraduate CS program (2009)

Re:Why MIT uses Python instead of Scheme for its undergradua... by kazinator on Saturday December 29, 2018 @12:32PM (#18784665)

The language known as Scheme has done a lot of damage to Lisp's image. When undergrads are exposed to Scheme, they tend to forever carry a negative image of Lisp by association.

A lot of the time when you meet someone who had a bad experience with Lisp, if you interview them a bit, you soon discover it was actually Scheme.

Scheme twenty years ago, R5RS was even worse than now. It had nothing practical in the spec. No way to write a program consisting of multiple files. No error handling. R5RS talks about situations that trigger an "error", but nothing about how such a thing can be handled and recovered. Or how an error can be generated on purpose and then caught.

Anyone who studied R5RS in school was learning an utter piece of academic garbage; a serious regression from real Lisp.

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Re:Why MIT uses Python instead of Scheme for its undergradua... by kbp on Saturday December 29, 2018 @09:03PM (#18786917)

I agree that there's a problem of people (even the people who rave about how enlightening it is) misunderstanding that a toy Scheme interpreter is what Lisp is, but I don't think that's an issue with Scheme. Introductory FP classes that use Common Lisp don't leave any better a taste in students' mouths, and real world Scheme is a lot more capable than a toy implementation designed for pedagogical purposes. I don't think the standard's conservatism is very much a factor.

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Re:Why MIT uses Python instead of Scheme for its undergradua... by jcelerier on Saturday December 29, 2018 @12:46PM (#18784734)

They tried many LISP dialects over the years: Scheme, CommonLisp and Racket - and I don't remember student reactions ever changing about it.

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