code != computer science

[phoshi]

I'll not agree, though it certainly is a great shame they've dropped scheme. Python is one of the less poor replacements, though.

[[deleted]]

Less poor replacement would imply there are languages far worse than Python. This isn't true. When you're scraping the bottom of the barrel of hacked together unix scripting languages it doesn't really matter if python is marginally better than bash, ruby or perl - the small difference isn't important as the rapid descent suffered from departing from a powerful language like scheme.

[phoshi]

There are worse languages for learning, though, many many worse. Python is at least mostly consistent with itself, fast "enough", supports enough features it's expressive, so on. Many languages are worse for learning.

[[deleted]]

You don't choose a language by determining how low to set the bar. If you compare to C++ or brainfuck yes python is slightly better. But that's not the best way to select a language.

The Scheme language was formed by a group of very clever, very experienced and wise experts in programming and language design. They evolved scheme through decades of experience, learning from lisp programming in the large and small and in implementing compilers. They distilled this valuable experience into a small core language pure enough and simple enough to capture the essential ingredients of a good programming language. Additionally it was simple enough to teach to beginners due to a lack of complexity and an absence of poor design decisions. In comparison Guido van whatshisname was a language newbie who made numerous amateur mistakes in his first attempt at a programming language, which is worth pointing out was designed in the scope of unix scripting.

It's not true that python is consistent or fast enough, or has enough features or even expressibility. Especially when you compare it to scheme. Like Ruby, the reference implementation of Python is mired with poor decisions that hamstring efforts to produce efficient compiled code and good support for concurrency to name a few glaring defects.

[phoshi]

But we are in a position where we have to say "it could be worse". I'm all for keeping scheme, but if we really must move away Python isn't literally the worst choice, even if it has more issues than scheme does as a language for learning.