Python at MIT
There was a bit of buzz about a year ago when MIT announced plans to experiment with an alternative version of their electrical engineering/computer science (Course 6) curriculum - one that would start students with a Python-based course instead of the famous Scheme-based 6.001. It was exciting news, but I hadn't heard anything about it since then.
Today, a look through the department's webpage shows that the experiment has come quickly to fruition, and the new curriculum is the standard for this year's freshmen.
6.01, Introduction to EECS I, with Python (and robots! Sounds FUN!)
I'm dying to know more about this! I'm going to hit up school friends for info, but maybe somebody here has more details to supply?
I still meet plenty of neckties who have never heard of any language besides C/Java/.NET (hey, it's the Midwest, and it's the Air Force), don't know why Python matters, and aren't interested in understanding its merits directly - only want to know "who's using it?". "MIT teaches it to all their EE/CS students" is a pretty good one-liner response. I'm not above leveraging MIT's name recognition. I did the time, after all (as a chemical engineer, not EE/CS, but still). Granted, it never won world domination for Scheme, but I bet it is the source of a very large fraction of the fame that Scheme does have.
Today, a look through the department's webpage shows that the experiment has come quickly to fruition, and the new curriculum is the standard for this year's freshmen.
6.01, Introduction to EECS I, with Python (and robots! Sounds FUN!)
I'm dying to know more about this! I'm going to hit up school friends for info, but maybe somebody here has more details to supply?
I still meet plenty of neckties who have never heard of any language besides C/Java/.NET (hey, it's the Midwest, and it's the Air Force), don't know why Python matters, and aren't interested in understanding its merits directly - only want to know "who's using it?". "MIT teaches it to all their EE/CS students" is a pretty good one-liner response. I'm not above leveraging MIT's name recognition. I did the time, after all (as a chemical engineer, not EE/CS, but still). Granted, it never won world domination for Scheme, but I bet it is the source of a very large fraction of the fame that Scheme does have.
posted by Catherine at
2:53 AM
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10 Comments:
great to hear. very smart Pythonistas coming.
By
Corey Goldberg, at 6:50 AM
Cool. Hope this will be a model for lots of other CS 101 courses.
By
Dorai, at 8:26 AM
I think its great that MIT are pushing Python to the forefront. We'd been using PHP for years until it failed on us on a big project (well, we failed to evaluate its capability if I'm being honest!). We switched to Python for some intensive stuff and it rocks. I'm no longer a programmer, but I've been in awe of what our guys have achieved with it. Well done MIT
By
John Tenders, at 12:51 PM
What exactly is your connection to Course 10?
By
Anonymous, at 2:33 PM
anonymous,
Course 10 SB '93. I sometimes wonder whether I wish I'd gone 6-3, but it all works out in the end.
By
Catherine, at 4:19 PM
"who's using it?"
Somehow I don't think the devastating reply "Google, NASA, MIT, and Industrial Light and Magic, to name but a select few" won't actually convince them, or matter at all.
Python is not an obscure marginal language. It's only obscure if you're an anti-intellectual shitbag who hates anything that's different.
And swapping Scheme for Python is tragic IMO.
By
Anonymous, at 7:57 PM
Harvard use Python for some of their courses too. But they still use Java for the CS100 intro course all the freshmen take. So it's not exactly Total Python Domination.
I'm not sure about switching Python in for Scheme. I learned Lisp and Prolog pretty early in my CS career and I feel like that knowledge stood me in really good stead. Or, to put it another way, I think Scheme may help you learn Python more than Python helps you learn Scheme.
By
Robert Ahrens, at 8:09 AM
A couple of years ago we founded a new CS program at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.
In our no-prereq CS class, student learn some introductory LINUX and get used to it by making a simple site with XHTML/CSS.
We then go on to learning to program in Python. The emphasis in this trimester (12 wks) course is to learn how to write simple Python functions correctly. We dive into functional programming tools and make heavy use of recursion.
Python is great for n00bs and it teaches good formatting habits. We love Python here in Durham!
By
mathsadist, at 3:09 PM
Sadly, it doesn't look like they've updated the OpenCourseWare version to reflect this change. It's still using scheme.
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-001Spring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm
By
Peter Pinch, at 1:24 PM
Peter,
I really don't know if the new 6.01 / 6.02 series would be appropriate for Open CourseWare anyway. It sounds like it's largely a hands-on class in building and programming robots... very hard to follow along with from your computer.
Personally, I still intend to use Open CourseWare to take the Scheme class after all... "when I get around to it", you know. It's still a very deep, insightful, nitty-gritty dive into the fundamental depths of computer programming (so they say). I think MIT students will continue to get it, it's just that the department hasn't decided it should be the first thing they get hit with... they should start out with something more hands-on, practical, visceral, cross-disciplinary... save the massively specialized academic stuff for later. Sounds like a good approach to me.
By
Catherine, at 7:06 AM
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