> Because lambda calculus is much simpler than that and still can do everything. As an engineer you strive for simplicity, right?
Brainf_ck is just as simple and it's also Turing Complete. You can't really say one way of expressing computation is more foundational than the other since they're all computationally equivalent. BF might not be as elegant as lambda calculus, but if your claim is true I don't see why it's not included as an alternative of the CS curriculum.
The real reason, IMHO, is that computer science historically evolved from disciplines that studied logic systems, and was a system that was proposed by Alonzo Church. There's a lot of worship for formal systems within the CS community, and in a self-referential way that makes it important because everyone else worth their salt would know this stuff.
Brainf_ck is just as simple and it's also Turing Complete. You can't really say one way of expressing computation is more foundational than the other since they're all computationally equivalent. BF might not be as elegant as lambda calculus, but if your claim is true I don't see why it's not included as an alternative of the CS curriculum.
The real reason, IMHO, is that computer science historically evolved from disciplines that studied logic systems, and was a system that was proposed by Alonzo Church. There's a lot of worship for formal systems within the CS community, and in a self-referential way that makes it important because everyone else worth their salt would know this stuff.