Subject: Re: newbie asks: why CL rather than scheme?
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2001 07:44:24 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3218082262478664@naggum.net>

* Robert Strandh <strandh@labri.u-bordeaux.fr>
| On the other hand, I think beginners today have a very clear (but wrong)
| idea of what programming and programming languages ought to be like.
| This makes them reject a priori anything that doesn't look like the
| expectations.

  But a university should reject anyone who is unable to deal with facts
  that run counter to their expectations, indeed all of their old beliefs.
  If there is anything that is worth learning at a university, it is that
  bringing expectations to one's research and rejecting information that
  does not fit them is Wrong.  In fact, few things you do can be worse if
  you really want to _learn_ something.  The first place new knowledge that
  might topple old beliefs can be expected to be found is at universities,
  so if somebody enters a university expecting to have their existing
  knowledge confirmed, as opposed to turned inside out and completely
  revised, they have wrong expectations about what a university is for.

| I secretly plan to take over that course and replace Scheme by Common
| Lisp.  I'll let you know what happened in a year or two.

  I look forward to it.  I find your "reports from the field" informative,
  maybe particularly since they tend to confirm my belief that Scheme hurts
  students.  :)

///
-- 
  The past is not more important than the future, despite what your culture
  has taught you.  Your future observations, conclusions, and beliefs are
  more important to you than those in your past ever will be.  The world is
  changing so fast the balance between the past and the future has shifted.