Thread 106546425

I am personally suspicious of the entire education system from kindergarten to college for many reasons, and one thing that makes my alarm bells ring is when the whole system decides that they need to teach certain subjects certain ways and discourage other methods. So i really need to ask, where the fuck did this "start with python and learn from there" thing come from? Why is it so standardized and expected for comp-sci students to learn this language first? You mighy say "its easier" but is that really the case and does it being "easier" actually matter in education? I thought we go to college to learn difficult advanced things that require the guidance from experts in the feild to comprehend, not to learn things that are "easier". Seriously i find this alarmingly suspicious. My first instinct is that its just a government honeypot, every line of python code you write gets tracked and logged by intelligence agencies. But it might be even deeper than that, the starting point of your programmimg journey will effect how you percieve everything going forward, maybe the government is forcing colleges to teach python because it gets you used to doing things a certain way that essentially brainwashes you to accept taxes and worship athority, this would make sense considering the governments track record. I dunno, just my two cents, thoughts?

>>106546425 (OP)
I didn't read any of that.
Anyways, I think powershell is a far better language for new people to programming.
Because you can find a bit of everything inside it and understand objects a lot better which is the preferred way of GUI programming.

>>106546425 (OP)
The first language I was taught in college was Pascal, so I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

>>106546453
Interesting. Ive never used pascal, one question. Did you ever feel like the way pascal is typed or tools it provides have any effect on your ability to realize that taxation is theft?

>>106546445
Powershell is good. Ive never felt like im getting brainwashed by government while using powershell

>>106546425 (OP)
Python is the best language for everyone other than actual software engineers. What kind of autist would teach C in a learn to code class?

>>106546541
Im not expecting that but my suspicion is driven by how common it is. I feel like teaching dynamic typing first is setting a lot of kids up to write big bugs down the time.

>>106546425 (OP)
I went from html/PHP to Java as the first langs I learned in school. Python came way later but only after C++. I was drilled that everything should not be done in python because it's purpose is for automating a repetitive task or prototyping C++ implementations together as a proof of concept to work towards and optimize. At this stage in life I meet BAs and masters from "reputable" American schools like MIT and Stanford that haven't even touched C before and jeetslop to the max. I honestly think it's highly dependent on the teachers you get dealt to you when you learn, retarded curriculums second.

>>106546630
There's no down the time though, they'll just do some scripting and data basedence at best

>>106546425 (OP)
Teaching people weakly typed languages as their first should count as a mental abuse that causes irrecoverable damage and should be punished accordingly.

>>106546476
Not that Anon but yes Pascal and Python are both Communist languages that cause psychic damage and inhibit the ability to understand and appreciate a liberty-focused mindset. Python even started out as a dictatorship rather than a democracy!

>>106546828
But anon types are heckin scary

>>106546630
what's your suggestion?

>>106546896
not him but everyone should start with dependently typed proof assistants.

>>106546425 (OP)
It's probably because you can do cool shit with without really having to learn anything about how computers work, which is why math and basedience fags are in love with it. Most CS classes aren't there to make you into a programming wizard. It's to teach nocoders how to do some useful shit with a computer so they can apply it some other area like data basedience, physics, finance etc. The average /g/tard neet autist is unironically years ahead of your average CS grad in terms of general computing and programming knowledge. The cunts on here are untapped well of potential but modern capitalism is engaged in a race to the bottom so will overlook the kind of person obsessed with writing quality code etc for a horde of Indians they can hire for 1/2 the price and the hope is if they throw enough of them at a problem they will eventually shit out the programming equivalent of Shakespeare while pocketing the difference over hiring people who treat programming like an art form.

>>106546961
can you repeat that in english?

>>106547046
Every student should learn to program by writing programs using dependently typed proof assistants like Coq, Agda, Lean, Idris, etc.

>>106546896
It depends. If someone was diagnosed with aspergers before the age of 8 then probably haskell, but for all other people, java, thats my idea

>>106546754
This this good input

I think it's weird that the starter designated starter language isn't Go.

>>106546425 (OP)
I don't think so but I noticed the pico8 lua dialect encourages people to make terrible code that doesn't follow any semantics, that makes pico8 emulation almost impossible to make since you first need an entire grammar parser to try parsing their dialect and even that is not enough to support all games since people use weird hacks and ugly inline code to bypass the limitations.
I learned this while trying to make a pico8 emulator myself. What a shitty language dialect, they ruined lua and now they are shilling it as a way to "learn how to make games" to new people not used to programming. agh I am still seething because of it, never use pico8 to learn how to code

>>106547085
why would anyone be motivated to learn this?

>>106546425 (OP)
It's especially bizarre because Python is the preferred language of non-programmers. If you're a physicist or whatever and you write software as part of your work, you use Python. There's no reason for CS students to learn it.

But it all makes sense when you realize that CS professors fall into the category of non-programmers. 60% of them have never worked a day outside academia, and it shows. Oh, how it shows.

>>106546425 (OP)
Completely schizo but they should start be starting with C or something else that is strongly typed and teaches how the fuck memory works.

Never forget that they want to milk your tuition for 4+ years but it would only take 6 months to actually train you for the job.

>>106547571
i'm a firm believer that some advanced version of Scratch that teaches memory and concurrency would probably be the best at teaching people how data structures are formed, stored, and utilized on a machine.

>>106546754
>I honestly think it's highly dependent on the teachers you get dealt to you when you learn, retarded curriculums second.
this is right on the money. The teachers and professors that teach python are either lazy and it's the bare minimum to collect a cheque or they honestly have no clue how to use anything else so they just parrot YouTube

>>106547571
>C
>strongly typed
Retard.

>>106546425 (OP)
Here in France, a lot of CS curriculums teach OCaml, and I have to say that it's actually pretty comfy to use. It's also great for teaching because its type system enforces prevents you from writing the horrible slop that Python shitters tend to produce.

Learning the general syntax, grammar, and sequencing of programs in c like languages, as well as near universal programming concepts of variables,
basic address location, iteration, recursion, and rudimentary data structures in python is pretty approachable vs diving straight into c. Easier still, for many of the above, learning a bit in Scratch, which many programs use as a first "language".

It's all about the concepts at first.

>>106547483
Because it's cool.

>>106547905
J’ai fait deux ans de Caml après le lycée. C'était très pénible, je n’ai jamais eu envie d’y retoucher depuis. Cela dit, je sais qu’au Vietnam on enseigne encore le Pascal… donc il y a sans doute pire

>>106546425 (OP)
>Why is it so standardized and expected for comp-sci students to learn this language first?

Because everything is going retarded.

Python isn't a good language for teaching, even then. It has many inconsistencies. It could be simple and straightforward like Scheme, which, ironically, is far more powerful.

>>106546425 (OP)
>where the fuck did this "start with python and learn from there" thing come from?
when you learn to program in whichever language first and then learn them all by extension, you'll realize that python gives the best bang for your buck as a noob language.

it's trivial to get something hacked together and working. yeah it won't be high performance scalable cutting edge portable or whatever but it will just werk on your machine and that's fine for the kinds of projects noobs and CS students typically need to do to learn to tell their ass from their forehead

>>106551159
any real programming language is full of retarded shit and edge cases, there's no point pussyfooting around it. learning how to deal with abstract nonsense is part of learning how to program.

once you learn it python is piss easy to use for lots of things, even if it's worthless for some others. it's the go-to language for projects that don't have any particular requirements for most engineers and scientists for this exact reason.

>>106546541
a software engineer will use whatever is the right tool for the job. only underageb& junior devs think it's some question of identity. if you need to get a some data processing code working on a system that ships with python you will absolutely use it.

>>106546425 (OP)
It just works

>>106546425 (OP)
>Why is it so standardized and expected for comp-sci students to learn this language first?

Man invents fictional scenario and gets angry about it

Jokes aside, it is neither standardised nor expected for CS students to start with Python.
They usually start with Java or C++, depending on the university. I've heard about some starting with Python, but (luckily) it's not the norm.

>>106547540
you're right some of the time but as someone who was a software engineer for a while before becoming a scientist I can tell you straight up that everyone writes shitty code in research, and for good reason. your incentives and constraints are completely different from those faced by a business.

typically, you're one guy or maybe assisted by a revolving door of short term students who you need to bring up to speed yourself, and the emphasis is on figuring out how to achieve some sort of result as a general principle, not on how to make sure it can be deployed in real world systems. you need to iterate rapidly, create lots of throwaway prototypes and you have to ruthlessly prioritize your time and effort to make sure you can get just the bare minimum shit done to get all your deliverables and publications done in time.

you tinker with shit endlessly until it works and the second it gets you the result you want you stop touching it - because that's when you write up about your results, shelve the thing and switch to the next project or iteration of the concept. having the time to develop proper procedures, systems, deal with technical debt or adhere to any design principles is a luxury you don't have 95% of the time.

>does it being "easier" actually matter in education?
It does when the quality of students is dropping each year.
>My first instinct is that its just a government honeypot
There's plenty of dumb shit the government has its fingers in, but this might not necessarily be it. The reality right now is schools are a business. They have loans to pay off for buying expansion buildings they didn't need and student recreation centers and such, and a bunch of bloated admin salaries. To pay for everything, they need butts in seats, and for students to graduate. The quality of that education is secondary. Compound onto this a secondary problem: the number of children people are having is decreasing. In fact, 2026 is going to mark 18 years after the 2008 financial crisis, which resulted in a significant decrease in birth rates. On top of that, we have dropping literacy rates. Incoming students struggle to read whole books because we've dumbed down education at the K-12 level (I can expand on this with a summary of what I've read from /r/teachers, but 4chan posts are 2000 chars, so it would have to be in a second post). The synthesis of these two problems means that if universities want to pay their bills, they need to scrape the bottom of the barrel for students (or get as many international students as possible, which may be a problem with the Trump wildcard), and graduate as many of them as possible. Using Python for all the computer science course work is just one small way to hit that target.

Honestly though, the bigger problem is that we're not doing as much about cheating. Professors don't want to be the one who gives out an F grade, so if you catch a student cheating, maybe instead of making them fail the class and get sent on academic probation, you just give a 0 on the assignment, or a 0 on the specific problem you are sure they cheated on. Meanwhile the choice of Python means cheating is much more likely, thanks to ChatGPT.

```ruby
p :hi # Ruby says hello

It's nominative determinism. The funniest jokes are in Monty Python so the funniest jokes are written in Python. If it doesn't make you laugh it's a joke at your expense.

I don't get its purpose, python is easier to write hello world in but as soon as you try to create a complicated project with it you run into the same challenges you would with any other language.