

Show HN: Scripting languages at university? - YPetrov
http://informatics-sapm.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/why-scripting-languages-should-be.html 
Hi everyone,&#60;p&#62;As part of a university course, I wrote a blog post on why scripting languages should be encouraged by the university professors for courseworks and how this will help students learn more.&#60;p&#62;What is your opinion on the topic?
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YPetrov
Hi everyone,

As part of a university course, I wrote a blog post on why scripting languages
should be encouraged by the university professors for courseworks and how this
will help students learn more.

What is your opinion on the topic?

~~~
latk
The main reason students should use non-low-level languages is to encounter
new features, and new programming paradigms. Languages like C or Java don't
have closures; this rules out real higher order functions. The type system of
Haskell is refreshing. Object orientation in traditional languages seems
crippled once you see CLOS, Ruby, Smalltalk or Perl6. The dynamic syntax of
Lisp or Perl6 is interesting.

Even a modern low-level language like Go or OCaml is “better” than C(++), as
memory safety rules our a majority of bugs. While everybody should understand
the lowest level basics, there are modern languages with extraordinary
features and great performance (2–300 times C) out there to get the actual job
done.

You could have also noted that the choice of the language is largely
irrelevant if the code is tested by language-agnostic tests. This would allow
the lecturer to specify a number of languages that are available, and require
the students to include a makefile to compile/build the actual project.

