Item — HN Reader

Personal opinions only ...

Scheme and its relatives in the Lisp family is seriously different, genuinely attitude and mind changing, and having it no longer an essential part of the curriculum makes it much, much less likely to be learned or used.

Python is a superb language, but I for one can see the Lisp influence in my programming, and I'm a better programmer for it. I think it's a shame that universities are moving more towards "relevance" and further from "what's actually good for you, and you won't really get a chance to do elsewhere."

And that takes us back to the question of what universities are for, and what the value is they provide. People are saying "Why should I go to university - I can learn this stuff elsewhere!" And for many things that's true. But there are things you simply won't learn elsewhere.

Lisp is one of them. I think losing it is a shame.

3 comments

Lisp is one of them.

Fortunately this isn't true. I'm living proof. People go to lisp for various reasons when they are ready, you don't need a university for that. In fact, teaching scheme badly to people who are not ready for it is probably a bad idea, and is the prime reason why some people actively avoid lisp later in their career.

having it no longer an essential part of the curriculum makes it much, much less likely to be learned or used

I argue that it's likely that Lisps are mostly learned and used regardless of any curriculum. In order to "get" Lisp, you have to be both endlessly curious about computing and in need for something that offers the benefits of a language like Lisp.

You will not "get" Lisp merely by being taught Lisp; you're only likely to be left with the question "Why?" until you actually need something like Lisp and can answer the "Why?" yourself.

Scheme is not used in many professional environments, and Common Lisp is on its way out, but Clojure is growing quite fast and can take advantage of the Java libraries.