can anyone tell me about scheme (programming language)

[Special K]

The CSE dept. of my university recently changed the curriculum and now next year sophomores have to take 2 semesters of a language called scheme instead of C++. I have never heard of scheme before. How is it different from other languages? Is its only purpose to teach concepts of programming? Does it have any real use in industry?

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: SpecialK
The CSE dept. of my university recently changed the curriculum and now next year sophomores have to take 2 semesters of a language called scheme instead of C++. I have never heard of scheme before. How is it different from other languages? Is its only purpose to teach concepts of programming? Does it have any real use in industry?

See http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/projects/scheme/ for an overveiw of Scheme. Basically, they swapped out C++ for Lisp. As for 'real use in industry', I'd say they just took one giant step backwards in preparing with usefull skills (IMHO).

Bill

 

[Ameesh]

Scheme is a functional Language and usually quite difficult to learn once you learn a procedural or OO language. It has a lot of recurision (thats how you do everything) and it is usually interpertered

Its not very useful in the real world as only academics use scheme and ML to complete tasks.



Let Me know if you have any more questions.



-Ameesh

 

[Ameesh]

oh: conceptually as a CS student its a good thing to know but im not sure 2 quarters of it is worth while. but it will help you get your recursion down pat.

 

[Spac3d]

[rant]Scheme is the most terrible language ever. I took it at my first semester at GA Tech as a comp sci major. The repulsiveness of this language made me want to swtich majors (after 3 years of C++/C/Perl experience) and guess what... I change majors. If there is any way you can get out of this class, do so. It really does work completely opposite of any real world experience you need.

The book MIT published for it was terrible too. They obviously don't know how to edit because of its grammar/spelling errors - but the content itself made no sense. Our teacher told us not to use it because it was worthless.

Damn MIT for creating it. Damn me for taking the class. I had always enjoyed programming...until scheme.

I will post some of GA Tech's webpages once I get around to finding the url. All of the class notes are online so you can take a look, but the professors never learned the language, so dont look at the sample code on the class notes because it doesn't compile.[/rant]

Spac3d

 

[joohang]

All of the class notes are online so you can take a look, but the professors never learned the language, so dont look at the sample code on the class notes because it doesn't compile.

hahaha

BTW, I thought that Scheme was interpreted?

 

[poopaskoopa]

Scheme, schelog, prolog, whatever. They suck. ((((((((((((((((blah blah blah)))))))))))))))))))

 

[manly]

For once I'll have to agree with Ameesh. :Q

I disagree with Spac3d though. Scheme was created at MIT, and its use in introductory CS has been adopted by many university departments across the country. Anybody can learn C/C++/Java on their own; that's not the purpose of CS. Also, SICP is a great CS book. The main downside is that it's hard for the average freshman to appreciate it the first time.

As a sidenote, it's fairly universally accepted that interpreted languages are better introductory teaching languages because feedback is much more immediate.

 

[Special K]

[rant]Scheme is the most terrible language ever. I took it at my first semester at GA Tech as a comp sci major. The repulsiveness of this language made me want to swtich majors (after 3 years of C++/C/Perl experience) and guess what... I change majors. If there is any way you can get out of this class, do so. It really does work completely opposite of any real world experience you need.

That bad, huh? I really don't have any way out of the class, as this fall will be its first time being taught to both soph. CS and CPEG majors, who are now both required to take 2 semesters of it. EEs on the other hand still get to take C++ instead (although the Scheme class would still fufill their programming requirements if they chose to take it instead).

How hard is it to really teach yourself C/C++ (like to a level that would allow you to do useful work in a career after graduation)? We learned some basic C this past year in my 2 intro to engineering courses, and I attempted to teach myself C++ awhile back but eventually got stuck with the text I was using and just gave up.

 

[BCYL]

I had to take a programming course with Scheme back in 1st year university..... To me it's much more complicated than using C/C++/Java... they syntax is quite annoying too...

To tell the truth, I dont remember much about it anymore since I NEVER seen scheme again after that programming course.... my managers at my current company dont even know what it is... they asked me "what is scheme" when I interviewed there since I put it on my resume... So in other words, it's quite useless in the real world...

 

[manly]

Off-topic Food for thought. Scheme is a dialect of Lisp btw.

 

[bolido2000]

I say...good luck counting the friggin' parenthesis!!
Its is not that bad. It is kind of weird at the beggining, but you'll get it.

 

[stonecold3169]

It's scheme that doesn't have any loops in it, right? Which is why it deals only with recursion? Check with your CS prof, I was able to skip it in my CS curiculum, you might be able to get out of it as well depending on exactly how your program woks there.