Python's simplicity philosophy

[Douglas Alan]

Dang Griffith <noemail at noemail4u.com> writes:

>> I would say that if you didn't get introduced to at least the concept
>> of functional programming and a hint of how it works, then something
>> was seriously wrong with your CS education.

> I've been lurking this thread for a while, but missed the beginning.
> Can I ask where you got your CS education (school and year)?  From
> the conversation, it seems that right or wrong, your education
> exceeds those in this group.  Where should I send my children such
> that they receive a better CS education that I?

I took some sort of one-day class at the public library on BASIC when
I was about 12.  Then later in high school, I was handed a book on APL
by a friend's father.  Then my mother sent me off to Harvard Summer
School, where I first took an official CS-101 class (and a class on
Astronomy), and then I went to MIT for undergraduate school, where I
also took their CS-101.

So, in a way, I had four different CS-101's, and in *all* of them I
was exposed to concepts of functional programming, except for the
BASIC case.

Despite me having studied at Harvard and MIT, it is my belief that you
don't have to have attended either of these places to receive a decent
CS education.  You just have to be taught by people who don't think
that something as simple as reduce() is beyond your abilities.  In
fact, perhaps it was in a small part because I was introduced to
concepts such as reduce() at a young age that I was able to become
smart enough to get into such a fine school.  Would you deny such an
opportunity to those who learn to program in Python?

|>oug