[plt-scheme] Are continuations discussed in HtDP?

Every now and then the professors here include a continuation-based 
interpreter design at the end of 6.001. In my experience as a tutor for 
that class, the students think it is far too difficult and confusing a 
topic. Of course that is how the class is perceived in general, but I 
think it is fair to say that only a relative few gain a good 
understanding of how and why continuations may be used. -Mike

On Mar 29, 2004, at 1:48 PM, Prabhakar Ragde wrote:

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>>    Do you think that for CompSci freshmen - the continuations are to
>>    be taught, or it turned out *practically* that this is an
>>    overkill?
>
> I am designing an HTDP-based course for first-year university
> students, but have not taught it yet. Nonetheless, I feel safe in
> saying that I would not teach continuations, even in the "enrichment"
> materials I intend to prepare for the better students. In a full-year
> sequence, I might (*might*) put them into the optional materials near
> the end, but not in a one-term course leading, as HTDP intends, to
> another programming language. No matter how attractive these features
> of Scheme may be to us, we have to think about the overall context of
> our pedagogy, and judge the effectiveness of our choices for all
> students. --PR