I took 6.001 in 1999 (I think). Hal Abelson taught it along with a professor who took off his sweatshirt to reveal a Microsoft tee at his final lecture (he went to Microsoft).

What was great about Scheme (Lisp) is that most programs are basically words from your vocabulary, parentheses, and cars and cdrs. With procedural languages, there is always a sense that the language provides all the tools, and the magic happens somewhere underneath the hood. But with Scheme it feels as if it's happening right before you. It makes you feel like a wizard, and not a monkey. And it requires knowing all the spells. It requires knowing how to make magic happen. Or not. Once you know none of it's magic. But that's the point!

Python is arguably easier and more practical for both science and work. It's already popular on the web server, and is used everywhere else -- unlike Scheme.

But the recent resurgence of functional programming is super exciting with Elixir and Elm and the like.

I'm looking forward to building my next project using Elixir.

Here is the classic course: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-compu...

Original video lecture on YouTube (linked from above): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Op3QLzMgSY