Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-eddie.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!mit-eddie!barmar From: barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin) Newsgroups: net.lang Subject: Re: Object oriented languages (MIT vs Hahvahd) Message-ID: <2123@mit-eddie.UUCP> Date: Thu, 21-Jun-84 00:29:44 EDT Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.2123 Posted: Thu Jun 21 00:29:44 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 15-Jun-84 00:36:39 EDT References: <1979@mit-eddie.UUCP> <268@harvard.UUCP> <2115@mit-eddie.UUCP> Reply-To: barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin) Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA Lines: 22 The difference between the introductory programming courses at MIT and Hahvahd probably has very little to do with the languages they use. It is more probably related to the philosophy of the curriculum, which Nessus implied. It is really wrong to call 6.001 ((born of 6.031 and 6.912) an "introductory programming course." Unless it has changed radically in the 3 or 4 years since I took it, it probably should not be taken by students with no prior computer programming experience. In fact, it was very helpful to already know Lisp (I took it the year before they switched to Scheme). The name of this course is "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs", and in it you are taught programming *ideas*, not programming languages. The course notes included a reference manual on the Lisp dialect we used, and the professors briefly went over Lisp programming for the first week or two, but from then on you were expected to be able to program anything you had to. This philosophy pervaded the entire MIT Computer Science curriculum, and it is the reason that I am so happy I went there. -- Barry Margolin ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar