Instead of deciding between Python or Lisp for a programming intro course...What about an intro course that uses *BOTH*? Good idea?

[Rustom Mody]

On Tuesday, May 12, 2015 at 10:34:32 AM UTC+5:30, Michael Torrie wrote:
> On 05/11/2015 08:04 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> > On Tue, 12 May 2015 05:01 am, beliavsky wrote:
> > 
> >> Yale has taken the unusual step of outsourcing its introductory CS class
> >> to Harvard, which uses C as the main language in its CS50 class.
> > 
> > And another generation of new programmers will be irreversibly damaged by
> > exposure to C...
> 
> How so?  Surely starting at first principles of a computer's operation
> can't be all that bad.  In my program at uni, one of the very first
> level courses was actually to build a simulated CPU from logic gates and
> then program it in assembly.

Thats true.
The intro to programming course needs to convey something beyond syntax
and minor details -- something like the 'Zen'

The difference between C/Lisp (I club them together) and python is that
the former are more heroic.

Like mountain climbing you can get a high, a thrill, even 'see God'¹ but
you can also break your back or worse.

Python is by contrast like a walk in the park.  If you find it interesting
(for reasons outside of python) you can get the job done. No epiphanies here

> C is just a step up from there.

which may be a step too much.
And I think its much more than one step. [How many links in the gcc toolchain?]

> I should note they also had Java in the first year, and that certainly caused
> irreversible damage.

A different question altogether.
What Joel Spolsky describes² is simply the fact that Java slides its
practitioners down the DIKW pyramid³

[My own record of the hell let lose by teaching too early C.⁴⁵
The first written in 91 and rather widely cited at that time including
first edition of 'Code Complete'. Second is a toning down as I grow older!
]

To some extent good teaching can ameliorate.
Only to some extent since the whole purpose of such languages is to dumb down
programming.

[And lest pythonistas feel pleased with that, do consider whether what
Spolsky applies to Java in 2005 in 2015 applies to python]
> 
> The wonderfulness of LISP and Python can be appreciated just fine with a
> solid background in how Von Neumann architecture actually functions. In
> fact I appreciate the layers of abstraction even more after I understand
> them.

modulo the law of primacy

----------------------------------------
¹ Eric Raymond almost literally says this:
| Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will 
| have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better 
| programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp 

² http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html

³ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIKW_Pyramid

⁴ http://www.the-magus.in/Publications/chor.pdf
⁵ http://blog.languager.org/2013/02/c-in-education-and-software-engineering.html