On 8/3/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">kirby urner</b> <<a href="mailto:kirby.urner@gmail.com">kirby.urner@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<div><span class="gmail_quote"></span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>For CS teachers interested in matters Pythonic:<br><br><a href="http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1840" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1840
</a><br><span class="sg"><br>Kirby<br><br>
</span></blockquote></div><br>Providing some of my own feedback:<br><br>There's this "MIT mystique" where part of the fascination is<br>all the Hogwartsian bureaucracy (the attribute "Kafkaesque"<br>
comes to mind): Course VI, with such as 6.001 and 6.099,<br>unchanged in 20 years.<br><br>That these courses are "barely doable" just adds to their <br>flamboyance. Tinkering with the core language mix, therefore,
<br>is *significant* (if you're buying into the MIT mystique, which <br>most of us do (e.g. see my "Mayan thread" @ Math Forum)).<br><br>I like the idea of controlling a robot, but question whether <br>turtle "move" commands will be needed. The tux droid has
<br>wings that flap, eyes the open and close... but it just spins <br>on its butt, doesn't walk (apropos penguins, who maybe do <br>it a lot, but not very well). <br><br>Easier for computer lab use, a stationary bot.
<br><br>import tux<br>tux.cmd.lefteye_open()<br>tux.rotate_on_butt(3) # quarter turns<br><br>stuff like that.<br><br>Beyond that, I think MIT is banking on its students being <br>highly competitive and questioning this Pythonic approach.
<br>They'll learn other languages, as an expression of their<br>academic freedom to do so.<br><br>What are we losing by moving to Python? Lambda calculus <br>rears from the ocean, a Legendary Beast. <br><br>What if we forget about lambda? Alonso Church et al?
<br><br>"Guido is a lamba hater" someone warns. <br><br>Reminds me of pleasant chats in greener pastures with <br>Tim Peters, about "little lambda" (Kirby: "we like our <br>lambdas little, make do sans the big woolly Scheme
<br>sheep").<br><br>Kirby<br><br>