[racket] off-topic -- Re: Live coding with Racket?

And that's the primary reason why, even though Java 8 has lambda expressions,
I plan to continue teaching functional programming concepts using Scheme/Racket.
One of my seniors, who just graduated, asked me a few weeks ago if I was going to continue
using Racket, or switch to Java in my course.  I told him they need to use other tools and environments.
They need to see problems and solutions and concepts from an entirely different 
perspective. It's more than just learning to code algorithms in Java vs. Scheme, etc.

George
-----Original Message-----
From: Matthias Felleisen [mailto:matthias at ccs.neu.edu] 
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2014 1:34 PM
To: George Rudolph
Cc: Nick Shelley; users
Subject: Re: [racket] off-topic -- Re: Live coding with Racket?


One of my grads called me this morning, from Cambridge/England after trying three times to connect with me yesterday. I hadn't talked to him in 10 years. 

[[ He called to say that (1) his Amazon interviewers loved everything on his CV that I had suggested to him way back -- but that's the unimportant part. Good students know and acknowledge where they learned the relevant stuff. ]]

He called to say (2) that he had been asked to interview 85 people for Amazon recently and that it confirmed all my predictions I had made to him as he grew up with me. These people graduate from "Java is all there is you need to know" so-called universities; they know the syntax; they know the JDK and SDK; they know Eclipse menu entries; they know some keyboard short-cuts; but they don't know any concepts. They can't think. They are unlikely to make a positive contribution and cannot be recommended. 

So perhaps it's not on people's list, but it is on the list of second-level interviewers at shops that understand the value of software. 

-- Matthias







On May 30, 2014, at 1:26 PM, George Rudolph <rudolphg1 at citadel.edu> wrote:

> Matthias,
> The computer science/programmer purist in me agrees with you.
> The pragmatist in me sees though, that "proper coding" is not only not 
> a priority for many people, it doesn't even show up on the list of 
> things that matter.
> 
> Should it? yes!
> George
> -----Original Message-----
> From: users [mailto:users-bounces at racket-lang.org] On Behalf Of 
> Matthias Felleisen
> Sent: Friday, May 30, 2014 12:57 PM
> To: Nick Shelley
> Cc: users
> Subject: Re: [racket] off-topic -- Re: Live coding with Racket?
> 
> 
> On May 30, 2014, at 12:50 PM, Nick Shelley <nickmshelley at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> the audience that wants to learn and be engaged with minimal reading. Whether that's an audience worth catering to is another question and one I'm not equipped to answer.
> 
> 
> I am absolutely sure you are correct that this audience exists, I am equally sure it's growing, I expect someone will take care of them with spoonfuls of principles that they can eat for dessert, but I won't be me. The best I can hope for is that the person who delivers these bite-size pieces of principles will be informed by my ideas on how to get people to code properly. 
> 
> -- Matthias
> 
> 
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