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> hated when my instructors put "important" results that we have never seen before on an exam.

You would have hated my 1977 quantum mechanics final; not a single question that had been directly covered in the course. Really sorted out those who had been paying attention from those who thought that memorization was enough.

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It doesn't seem like many universities do it like that at all anymore. MIT's old comp sci curriculum used to be great. I've since seen them replace teaching fundamentals on lisp with python. My guess is that python is taught so that they can stuff their curriculum with buzzwords.

If I recall correctly, the stated reasoning is that most software construction today relies heavily on combining libraries, and the batteries-included nature of Python allows them to get to this point earlier in the semester. Also, using Python makes more of the material directly transferable to upper-level machine learning and big data subjects.

As far as buzzwords, I think the weight of "MIT" is much heavier than any buzzwords that could be attached. (Though, I'm biased.)

The current version of the class you are referring to actually includes an assignment to implement a lisp interpreter in python, which you might find interesting.

https://py.mit.edu/fall21/labs/lab09

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