do...until wisdom needed...

[Steven D. Majewski]

On Tue, 8 May 2001, Alex Martelli wrote:

> I don't really understand why, and part of my wondering
> why so many other people (who were exposed to it in their
> CS studies, if Scheme is indeed widely used in teaching
> CS) appear to feel similarly, was to try and gain more
> clarity on my own reasons.  But surely, if "resentful of
> Scheme" is a widespread issue, that's not the one that
> applies to me.
> 
> IS it widespread?  [ ... ]

 I don't think the use of Scheme as a teaching language is
"widespread" -- not sure how you would define "widespread" ,
but it's not as widely used as C++ .  I think the usual
assertion is that it's used in some of the 'better' CS depts.:
MIT, Stanford, etc. i.e. quality, not quantity. 
 An even there, by some reports it may be loosing ground. 
 There's certainly always pressure from the customers (i.e. students)
to teach something more "practical" , where practical is defined
as what the want adds are currently asking for.  


> Alternative hypotheses might be entertained.  Maybe
> Scheme isn't as widely used in teaching as all that --
> what % of first CS courses use it?  

See above.

>					Maybe Scheme can
> be perfectly suited to teaching and exploration but
> not as useful for production use -- the way a richer
> but more complicated tool such as Common Lisp might
> be -- and perhaps the Scheme -> Common Lisp transition
> may not prove as smooth for many as just describing
> both as "dialects of Lisp" might suggest (as we've
> seen both Python and Haskell described in similar
> terms in these threads, the tag might possibly carry
> relatively little real-world usefulness, at least as
> it's being used around here these days).  

I think this is at least partly true on both counts:
 Scheme and it's standard library is too minimal to be useful
for lots of problems, and the Scheme<>Lisp transition isn't
trivial -- Common Lisp has a big standard library, and learn
Scheme doesn't help you at all with learning that. 


>					I'm not sure
> there ARE real-world lessons to be learned from all
> this, but, I still wonder...


I think language adoption is driven as much by sociology 
and social factors as it is by technology. 

For the really useful real-world lessons, see:
 "Models of Software Acceptance: How Winners Win" 
<http://www.dreamsongs.com/NewFiles/AcceptanceModels.pdf>

which can be found along with ALL of the "worse is better" 
variations at: <http://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html>

( Thanks to whoever posted the link that lead me there -- there
  were a couple there I hadn't read. ) 

As well as Donald Norman's Life Cycle of a Technology:
<http://www.nngroup.com/reports/life_cycle_of_tech.html>

-- Steve Majewski