Tracy Nelson on Wed, 29 Sep 1999 09:21:16 -0400 (EDT)


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Re: [Plug] Pro Unix Colleges


Hugh Brock wrote:
> Nick R wrote:
> > Scheme?
> 
> Very pure, very cool Lisp dialect written by (I believe) Olin Shivers.

Actually I'm pretty sure Guy Steele did the original design and
implementataion.  Let me see (rummage, scrounge, yank), yeah:

    "Much of the style and aesthetics of programming that we try to
teach were developed
     in conjunction with Guy Lewis Steele Jr., who collaborated with
Gerald Jay Sussman 
     in the initial development of the Scheme language." (from the
"Acknowledgments"
    section in SICP.)

I *always* recommend this book to anyone who wants to get started with
programming and has no programming language experience.  If you've
already started playing with procedural languages, though, you've
already handicapped yourself.  Well, maybe not that bad, but...

As far as out-of-state colleges go, UT Austin is still pretty good
(although I'd imagine a pretty low goth coefficient, what with it being
Texas and all), and I'll throw in a plug for my alma mater, Iowa State. 
Good facilities, serious about research (had one of the first Athena
installations outside of MIT), tends to have cutting-edge hardware (we
had VAXen s/n 64 & 72).  I learned enough to make a good living working
with computers, despite the fact that I was an English major!  MIT and
Stanford, of course, are your best bet, but they're way expen$ive, esp.
since you've got out-of-state tuition and room & board to consider.

I'd really recommend you check out CMU.  They've got a good reputation,
you can pay in-state tuition, and it's at the far end of the state, so
you'll have some breathing room ;).

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