Re:Ask HN: Python or Scheme?
by open on Saturday May 07, 2011 @05:52AM
(#2523522)
For most intro CS courses, the language is not as important as the lessons being taught. That being said, Python is an amazing language. I don't believe you're missing out on anything that you couldn't otherwise pick up later on if you were interested in learning Scheme as a language itself.
[ Parent
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In cs61a, it really takes one or two lectures to teach Scheme - that's the beauty of it, there is not much syntax to learn. Like almost every other CS class at Berkeley, it's not a language course; it's a computer science course.
A major part of the class was writing a Scheme interpreter in Scheme, which I imagine will not be possible in the new 61a (writing a Python interpreter in Python, that is). Considering how utterly jacked up Python's syntax is, compared to Scheme, I can't wait to see how they manage to pull this one off.
Really, if any Berkeley CS student can't learn Python on their own, their job prospects should be nil anyway.