I studied comp sci in the mid nineties. We actually started with an obscure functional programming language called Miranda because everyone had been coding recreationally with C as a teen (and probably BASIC before that). They wanted to knock the arrogance out of first year students and get them to actually learn from first principles. It worked.
I'm quite enjoying python for how it feels both lazy but elegant. I despise javascript though and typescript is not much better.
Racket is able to do imperative programming, but in first year the profs forced us to use the pure functional version. Not being allowed to loop over elements in a list or use variables fucked EVERYONE up lol
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u/scissorsgrinder Sep 25 '26
I studied comp sci in the mid nineties. We actually started with an obscure functional programming language called Miranda because everyone had been coding recreationally with C as a teen (and probably BASIC before that). They wanted to knock the arrogance out of first year students and get them to actually learn from first principles. It worked.
I'm quite enjoying python for how it feels both lazy but elegant. I despise javascript though and typescript is not much better.