Comments on: Why MIT now uses python instead of scheme for its undergraduate CS program

By: queuerious

queuerious — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 07:38:49 +0000

Pathetic. Python … a language one can learn in 3 days on his/her own … for 6.001? Wow.

The whole push for LISP/Scheme in the late 70′s and early 80′s (when I was there) was to realize A.I.

MIT (and the greater computing community) failed with A.I. (aka fifth generation computing). MIT has fallen way behind in robotics. And now MIT is going with Python??!!! What a joke! Watering down of MIT continues. We had to solve problem sets recursively. I heard that became an “option” in the 90′s and 00′s. Now … Python?!?! What is there to teach on Python for 14 weeks? MIT = Harvard now?

By: Chas Emerick

Chas Emerick — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:07:35 +0000

Prof. Sussman said nothing about the new curriculum fully encompassing the old. It’s different, and different for a set of distinct reasons. He underlined the continuing utility of lisps when I spoke to him later, as I described at the end of the post.

By: Chas Emerick

Chas Emerick — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:07:16 +0000

I’ll make that s/scheme/SICP edit shortly. The camera that had been recording all of the proceedings throughout the day was not in place for the macro debate. I remember looking for it before Prof. Sussman began his remarks. Hopefully some recording will emerge eventually.

By: Anon

Anon — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:06:04 +0000

ridiculous notion. i am a huge fan of python, and use it on a daily basis. this decision makes sense if you’re teaching programming,

but i thought MIT had a computer science curriculum. my bad.

By: Chas Emerick

Chas Emerick — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:05:48 +0000

I wouldn’t say there was any sarcasm there. I might speculate that python doesn’t have any particular features on its own to recommend it as the language of choice of an undergrad CS course, except perhaps its massive libraries and applicability to subject matter (like robotics). Given that, any other language with the same characteristics would do, and it could be very different from python (e.g. if Lua had a larger community, it probably would have been a contender).

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:04:52 +0000

I applaud the decision. Probably the best reason: Python better reflects the implementation tools a software developer is likely to encounter ‘in the wild’. Mo’ better real-life!

By: Stephen Ferg

Stephen Ferg — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:04:26 +0000

To guess that Python was chosen because it has good standard-library support for robotics strikes me as odd. First, because Python has little if any support for robotics in the standard library. Second, because citing this as the first reason for choosing Python is like saying that you chose GM cars for your 1000-car corporate fleet because you like the trunk latches.

If I read Professor Sussman’s remarks correctly, he’s talking from personal knowledge about why MIT abandoned Scheme. But he’s not talking from personal knowledge about why it chose Python. He says “we” decided that we should adjust our curriculum, but uses “they” to refer to the committee that chose Python, and indicates that he doesn’t know (although he can hazard a guess) about why “they” choose python.

In short, the title of this blog is a bit misleading. It has virtually nothing to do with choosing Python. It really should be titled “Why MIT no longer uses Scheme for its undergraduate program”.

I would love to see an endorsement of Python from Professor Sussman. And he may have given such an endorsement – but not here.

By: Dan Weinreb

Dan Weinreb — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:02:58 +0000

The point is that the change in the curriculum has almost nothing to do with Scheme or with Python! It wasn’t a big change based on the programming language. Rather, there was a huge change in the entire goal of the courses and the freshman curriculum. They aren’t trying to teach the same thing they used to teach. They are now teaching the engineering of the 21st century instead of the engineering of the 20th century. The use of Python is largely incidental; the software for the hardware platforms that they’re uisng just happen use Python. If they used Scheme or Ruby, then they’d teach the course in Scheme or Ruby, but they just happen to use Python, and Python is an acceptable language for the curriculum.

You may get different answers from other faculty members; it’s a big faculty and different people vote based on different criteria. But the original post only claimed to be what Gerry Sussman believes, and it’s right.
(Sorry, no, this part of the conference did not get videotaped.)

By: Matt Domsch

Matt Domsch — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:02:00 +0000

python has lambdas now, an incredibly useful addition. Nearly 20 years later, I had a dream just last week that I was back in class with Dr. Sussman and a copy of SIPC in my hand. Eval / Apply anyone? :-)

By: Sam Griffin

Sam Griffin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:01:26 +0000

Thanks for the paraphrased speech, Chas. I’d read it before in another blog, but it was less detailed.

If I’m distilling correctly the argument for python, it’s that it is easy, fun and accessible. This is a good argument in most cases, but it seems a terrible argument within MIT.