Rani Hod wrote: > Though I'd say that Scheme is pretty good too, from what I've heard. > (I've never tried it myself.) If I understand correctly, it's much > less commonplace than Python in the industry, but at least it's a > high-level language which encourages good thinking, much more so > than C++ or Pascal.
(hey, i didn't write that - cool-RR did ;) i do not agree with this point, but that's besides the point). > > > As I see it, the only two real life uses for lisp are: > 1) customizing your emacs > 2) Abuse <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_(video_game)> > > > I'm saying that because I try to be careful not to be too dogmatic > on Python. It's my favorite language, but I try not to forget that > there are other great languages too. (likewise) > > Right. And this is not a course about any specific language. It just > happens to use Python. > > One thing of importance: one of the problems with high-level > languages, is that they hide efficiency issues very well - e.g. > people start using lists, dictionaries and such, with little > awareness to what goes under the hood - and as a result don't get > the feel for how efficient (or not) some of the data structures are. > > are you going to tackle this issue in this course? i got a feeling > you won't be using python in the data structures course - and many > people may miss the connection. > > > It is the very first hands-on course that CS students take, often 1st > year, 1st semester. > It is not a course about data structures, complexity, algorithms, > software design, or even software development. > They'll see some of it throughout the degree (and they still won't be > great programmers without practice) but the focus of our course is > elsewhere. i know it's the first course. as far as i remember, in the technion's first course, they mention the idea of complexity at some point and talk about it a little - even thought it's dealt with more seriously in the data structures course and in the computation theory course. don't you mention it at all during this course? --guy _______________________________________________ Python-il mailing list [email protected] http://hamakor.org.il/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/python-il
