[plt-scheme] The Lambda Calculus behind functional programming

"Noel Welsh" <noelwelsh at gmail.com> writes:


[...]


> If you mean beginning programmers, I think starting with the LC would
> quickly demotivate them.  Show them some fun stuff first, then the
> underlying theory.  Very few people come to a field to study it per
> se, but rather to learn how to produce the visible end results of the
> field.

For the type of person like me (i.e., me), if I'd learned an abstract
foundation for the logic of programming, I would have been much more
motivated to actually do it.  My first programming class was a
numerical analysis class where the teacher could assume reliably that
most of the people had programming experience, and we used an environment
that I will actively avoid from now on (a: proprietary, b: serious
problems with symbols).  The basic idea of the class was "here's an
algorithm; here are some of the things that can make it more
efficient and the results more reliable.  Now go program it."

I found that a very difficult way to think about things.  Now that
I've had some programming experience, thinking about programming in a
functional framework and with an abstract background makes a lot more
sense to me now.  I think that, being an abstract-math kind of
thinker, I would have learned more if I'd started in 6.001.

Joel

-- 
Joel J. Adamson
Biostatistician
Pediatric Psychopharmacology Research Unit
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, MA  02114
(617) 643-1432
(303) 880-3109


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