In the context of the class (The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs), I feel like this is not such an outlandish view. It sounds to me like the field of software engineering has simply evolved since the 80s.
Don't get me wrong, if you are going for post-graduate studies such a course will always be relevant, but it sounds like he is talking within the context of undergraduates. And in the context of undergraduates, I too would be circumspect of how useful it would be for preparing you for your first job as a Software Engineer.
Their choice to go toward a Python-based course at the undergraduate level would also seem to reaffirm this view from afar...
> It sounds to me like the field of software engineering has simply evolved since the 80s.
What is ridiculous in the face of this "programming by experimentation" fantasy is that programming has evolved since the 1980s... to be even more about composable abstractions with provable semantics. Hindley-Milner-Damas types and monads are now everywhere.
The application of mathematical type theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_F) to popular programming languages goes back to 1998 when Philip Wadler designed generics for Java.
Local type inference is now used in Visual Basic, Scala, Rust, probably a lot of other new languages I am missing. Gradual types are coming to Clojure and probably Python and Lua.
Erik Meijer did a lot of work on bringing monads and FRP as patterns to .NET programmers. Java 8 has monads (Optional and Stream interfaces). Bartosz Milewski has been getting a lot of attention in C++ circles (see his blog: https://bartoszmilewski.com/)
Don't get me wrong, if you are going for post-graduate studies such a course will always be relevant, but it sounds like he is talking within the context of undergraduates. And in the context of undergraduates, I too would be circumspect of how useful it would be for preparing you for your first job as a Software Engineer.
Their choice to go toward a Python-based course at the undergraduate level would also seem to reaffirm this view from afar...