[TYPES] Fwd: Revenue-neutral Adjustment for Functional Programming

[Matthias Felleisen]

This message is slightly off-topic, and apologies for that. I  
believe, however, that it is in the spirit of this list.

The ACM Curriculum board has re-opened the 2001 design for review.  
Although ACM is a US-based organization, the curriculum is not only  
influential at the middle tier of US colleges and universities, it is  
also taken seriously by many evolving and developing educational  
institutions overseas. As you may recall, I alerted the readers of  
this list in the late 90s that the curriculum has relegated the study  
of PL and type systems to a peripheral status. We may now have an  
opening to make a small change.

The ACM Curriculum board has agreed to consider a proposal on  
including FP as an equal to OOP (10 "hours" each) in the standard  
curriculum. See forwarded message below. This was the most concrete  
outcome of the PLC workshop at Harvard two weeks ago. (Stuart Reges,  
Shriram Krishnamurthi, and I drafted the proposal; Larry Snyder  
volunteered to submit it once the workshop expressed its unanimous  
support. The three of us came to the conclusion that only an  
inclusion of FP in the general curriculum will prepare students for  
properly designed though possibly optional PL courses, including a  
thorough study of type systems.)

Please consider contributing comments to the web site. A simple "Yes,  
I think this is a great idea" will be helpful. A short explanation is  
even better.

Thanks -- Matthias


>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>>> From: Larry Snyder <snyder at CS.WASHINGTON.EDU>
>>> Date: June 9, 2008 6:58:43 PM EDT
>>> To: PL-CURRC-WKSHP-INVITEES at LISTSERV.ACM.ORG
>>> Subject: Revenue-neutral Adjustment for Functional Programming
>>> Reply-To: Larry Snyder <snyder at CS.WASHINGTON.EDU>
>>>
>>> Colleagues:
>>>
>>> The ACM Education Board accepted our last minute input for adding  
>>> Functional Programming to the core of the revised CC2001-CS  
>>> curriculum, has posted our proposed changes on it's Web site
>>>
>>> http://wiki.acm.org/cs2001/index.php?title=SIGPLAN_Proposal
>>>
>>> and invited comments. Feel free to endorse our "revenue neutral"  
>>> workshop motion. (I quickly wrote the text in support of this for  
>>> use by the Ed Board, not expecting it to be included in the  
>>> posting; so apologies if I missed points or messed them up.)   
>>> Accordingly, crisp arguments for this change will doubtless be  
>>> helpful. -- LS
>>>
>>
>