[ prog / sol / mona ]

prog


ACM Library is open access during the pandemic

24 2020-06-18 13:27

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/24697.24706
A critique of Abelson and Sussman or why calculating is better than scheming by Philip Wadler

This heretic paper advocates the use of Miranda (basically Haskell 0.1) instead of Scheme to teach novice students the principles of computer programming. The author has been using SICP in his class and his critics are pertinent and restraint (Abelson and Sussman even helped with an early draft of the paper). According to him, absence of pattern matching, static typing (and user-defined types), and lazy evaluation can be confusing for students. His examples are often pertinent although I was not convinced with the advantages of his implementation of a lambda calculus evaluator in Miranda and the only point he makes with the benefits of lazy evaluation concerns the Streams chapter (in which a modified interpreter with lazy evaluation is used anyway)

I think I've heard of this paper before. The conclusion is amusing. It's noted that an objection for the value of Miranda in an entry level course is that Miranda has no use in the real world. You then understand that "real world" at the time of writing means Cobol and Fortran, as opposed to the esoteric Lisp, Miranda and Pascal. Python is now the language used for teaching 6.001 and that debate is closed.

35


VIP:

do not edit these