from hell to paradise ; ; ; was: [plt-scheme] Prereqs for robotic programming

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:30:54PM -0600, Grant Rettke wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 9:44 AM, Matthias Felleisen
> <matthias at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
> > FP has failed to reach out and demonstrate concretely to such people "how _it_ works and is superior to what they have."
> 
> Is that one of the duties of your academic career? Personal philosophy?
> 
> The most popular programming trends today encourage acceptance without
> question and utilization without understanding fueled mostly by highly
> charismatic individuals and/or big corporations. The motto "Thinking
> is not required" sums it up.
> 
> Compared to the mainstream; there is little material that shows why
> "FP is so great"; but the material, and more importantly the people,
> are out there; it just requires a highly motivated individual to take
> the effort to find out why.
> 
> That individual is likely to be a fractional percentage of the overall
> community. *That* is the problem.

The wider problem is that the practice of computer programming (taken in 
a wide sense) is spreading far faster than the understanding of computer 
programming.  The result is that, as a beginner, you're likely to be 
learning from other beginners.  And you're not even likely to know there 
are other ways.

-- hendrik