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Comment by hajderr | Hacker News Reader

"We need better languages for introductory computing." and "One of the enduring lessons from the Racket project is that no full-blown, general-purpose programming language is particularly appropriate for introductory education."

Well not really, we need better teachers and methods for teaching programming and computing. A good language on its own is not gonna lift the interest.

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> Well not really, we need better teachers and methods for teaching programming and computing.

I think most of the Pyret developers would agree wholeheartedly! To this end, the Pyret development team works closely (and in some cases, overlaps) with Bootstrap [1], a nation-wide program to teach programming to middle school students. The feedback we get from these teachers (and the process of teaching teachers) directly informs language design.

Furthermore, at Brown University, where many of Pyret's developers have ties, Pyret is dogfooded on two courses: an "Accelerated Introduction to Computer Science" [2] and "Programming Languages" [3].

(Disclosure: I am a developer of Pyret.)

[1] http://www.bootstrapworld.org/ [2] https://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs019/2016/ [3] https://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2016/

Is there a good quality MOOC on Pyret? I am not in high school but am not a programmer either. I started using DrRacket MOOC fairly recently on Edx and had no idea about Pyret until today. My interest in finding good quality teaching, led me to Racket, all the way from the hype of Python/Ruby, and anyone else in between. I am trying to follow Racket but now I am confused between Racket and Pyret.

There is no MOOC I know of that uses Pyret (yet).

Racket is great! If you're already deep into Racket, I wouldn't say stop to try Pyret unless you particularly have the goal of learning more languages, or there's something about Pyret that really gets you interested.

We taught a programming languages course that uses Racket back in 2012, but all the material is still online:

https://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs173/2012/

So if you're looking for online content that we recommend, that could be an interesting next step that makes use of the momentum you have in following Racket.

The Pyret book PAPL is free online, and it's possible to dive in and follow that if you're curious about learning Pyret, though it doesn't have the infrastructure of assignments with autograders, etc, that a MOOC would have:

http://papl.cs.brown.edu/2015/

Thank you. I am not deep into Racket yet, but it requires concentration which I lack at the moment. Based on your suggestion, I'm going to stay focused and attempt to complete, instead of distracting myself.

I started reading HtDP2e before finding the Edx. The MOOC helped reinforce what I was reading. I realized that through Racket, learning to program is a superior experience. This, compared to any other (popular) languages, people are teaching (or coding on the screen). I spent too much time watching people code. People attempt to teach online, but most of them lack the traditional pedagogy. They know how to code, but they don't necessarily know how to teach.

The only exception I would make to above (as far as what I know right now), is Harvard's CS50.

Yep. Stay where you are. Work through the MOOC. You'll learn a ton.

Confused? Don't be! If you're happy with Racket, stay there. Racket is absolutely awesome. If you're using Gregor Kiczales's MOOC, you're learning from an absolute master. Pyret also has many things to offer, but you can sample them after you're done with the EdX MOOC. Come over to the Pyret list [http://www.pyret.org/discuss/] and drop us a note, and we'd be happy to guide you through.

Those of us who overlap the Pyret and Racket team have been working on better curricula for over twenty years (e.g., http://htdp.org/).

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