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From: nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Object oriented languages
Message-ID: <2159@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 16-Jun-84 04:14:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.2159
Posted: Sat Jun 16 04:14:56 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jun-84 03:26:17 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 76

>	From: brownell@harvard.UUCP (Dave Brownell)

>	[MIT attacks Harvard ... a counterattack !!!  a left!!!  ... a
>	CDR ???]

Well, I dunno if I'd call it an attack. (Maybe a call-by-name argument.)  I
just think that MIT does a much better job at teaching introductory computer
science, and I think it's important to understand why.

Also, I had realized that I had not made my point very well and I posted
very shortly after posting the article you are talking about a new
article that more closely said what I meant.  It addressed most of what
you are talking about before you even said it.  I think it is a pretty
good idea in general to read through the whole news group before
responding to an individual letter.  I will quote from that newer letter
here where appropriate.

>	It may not have come across in Kevin's original letter, but the
>	course in question came from MIT.  As Kevin said, machine
>	resources were the big bottleneck.  I was also a TF for the
>	course; I know.  The reason there was a machine bottleneck was
>	an implementation of SCHEME that used too much virtual memory.
>	(A better implementation foundered on political sand and lack of
>	support.)

Me: "Harvard used MIT's course with Scheme and all its neat concepts for
a semester, but seems to have reverted back to its old course (which by
the way is based on MIT's course from about 10 years ago) due to lack of
computer resources and a desire to make the course more practical once
again.  And this I think is a shame."

Actually, the real reason they changed back to the old course is
probably because the implementation of Scheme came from Yale. :-)

>	Ruminations about trade schools versus liberal arts schools
>	(bring on the flames !!!! :-) are interesting, but frankly, "you
>	had to be there".

Hmmph.  I wouldn't call MIT a "trade school".  Many people (like me) are
here for science, philosophy, math, linguistics, art, etc. -- not
engineering.

>	Doug did not take any Harvard version of the course in question.
>	Summer school didn't count.

I suppose you should tell this to Henry Leitner, the instructor of the
course, who told us that we were going to be doing everything the normal
semsester class did, and since it was crammed into seven weeks we were
going to have to work really hard.  It only took 48 hours a day.  And I
suppose you should also tell this to the all the people I talked to who
had taken the normal semster course and told me that we were indeed
doing everything they did.  And I suppose you should also tell Harvard,
who gave me the same credit.

>	I agree that beautiful concepts can complement engineering, but
>	this time the concepts lost.  Beautiful concepts, as anyone who
>	has worked in the computer industry can testify, may lose to the
>	reality of implementation.  On many machines now in existence,
>	object oriented languages are implemented inefficiently; unless
>	you have money to burn, they aren't a real option for very large
>	introductory courses.

MIT seems to do a good job at it.  Of course they have money to burn.
But this is an important point.  Sometimes in order to provide a good
education, you have to spend money.  Like providing a large library with
millions of books.  Or providing enough computer resources to adequately
teach object-oriented programming.  (Two Vax 750s for several hundred
people just doesn't cut it.)

-- 
				-Doug Alan
				 mit-eddie!nessus
				 Nessus@MIT-MC

				"What does 'I' mean"?