Re: CL failure stories?

"Mark Tarver" <dr.mtarver@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

> One of the biggest failures of Lisp [...] is to make it as the
> language of choice for teaching [undergratuate students] functional
> programming.

> There are several reasons why.

Spot on, but I'd like to expand on that.

You have to know what a programming course is like. Where I live,
it's usually one lecturer and 2 to 5 groups for practicals.

During a practical, you find yourself with 30 students on 30 machines
writing a program that is calibrated to be just a little bit too
difficult for most of them. There are some quiet moments, but most of
the time you've got a queue of five raised hands.

And the most common question is ``it doesn't work''. At which point
you've got to help the student debug his code, and be speedy enough to
prevent the other students from getting frustrated and thinking about
something else. A fascist compiler really helps.

I use Lisp for most of the programming I do myself -- but I'd never
dream of using it for any non-trivial programming projects with
undergrads. The only way to change that is to double the teaching
staff -- but is society willing to foot the bill?

Juliusz
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Why I stop attacking HLA
    ... so I can implement it and see why HLL control structures make ... Language Programming" course is to teach them what things like "bits" ... all the students show up already knowing assembly language. ... > Facts are facts and are independent of any usability. ...
    (alt.lang.asm)
  • Re: STL Usage [Re: My brains have gone dry and flakey ...]
    ... I daresay this is one reason that Java has become such a popular teaching ... network programming support make it relatively easy to provide such ... teaching language of choice. ... pointers, header files, or even the steps of compiling and linking, students ...
    (alt.comp.lang.learn.c-cpp)
  • Re: PROGRAMMING HOMEWORK HELP!
    ... >> My problem is that students are left in the dark what these deadlines ... > deadline means by the time he or she arrives at the university. ... > What is different about a deadline for a programming exercise? ... courses ok get in trouble with this while seeing that some of their ...
    (comp.programming)
  • Re: Where to find good lisp critiques?
    ... > Programming language has a specific meaning, ... > discussion is that people tout the wonders of free software and how ... > recognizing as the whizzy thing that students want. ... is tied up with flashy UI -- which, so far, is precisely what code artists ...
    (comp.lang.lisp)
  • Suggestions for topics in an Ada course?
    ... I have the luxury of teaching a course next semester that can be about ... I would like to teach the students some Ada. ... The programs they have worked on so far have been typical programming ... tools, etc, that I might look at as I prepare materials for next semester. ...
    (comp.lang.ada)
Loading