python in academics?

[kyosohma at gmail.com]

On Oct 30, 2:55 pm, Bruno Desthuilliers
<bdesth.quelquech... at free.quelquepart.fr> wrote:
> kyoso... at gmail.com a écrit :
>
> > On Oct 29, 10:39 pm, sandipm <sandip.m... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>seeing posts from students on group. I am curious to know, Do they
> >>teach python in academic courses in universities?
>
> >>in undergrad comp science courses,  We had scheme language as scheme
> >>is neat and beautiful language to learn programming. We learnt other
> >>languages ourselve with basics set right by scheme..
>
> >>sandip
>
> > They didn't at either of the colleges I went to. They seemed to be
> > focused on C++, COBOL and Visual Basic. All are used all over the
> > place, but only Visual Basic is easy for complete newbs.
>
> And alas one of the worst languages for a beginner - because you'll
> probably need years to unlearn it.

which language? I listed 3...and since you don't actually "learn" a
language at all in a beginner's class, I don't really have anything to
unlearn. All you get in those STUPID classes is a taste of
programming...if you're lucky.


>
> > I hope more
> > colleges adopt Python or Ruby as a teaching language, but I don't
> > think it's a good idea to ignore COBOL or C++ since their used so
> > extensively in big business.
>
> being widely used doesn't imply being a good language for teaching CS
> (nor even being a good language for anything).

I wasn't implying that they were good or bad, but that if you go to
work for most big businesses, than it would probably be beneficial to
know the language(s). For example, most insurance, financial and
government jobs use COBOL to some degree or another.

Mike