Teaching programming

How should we be teaching programming? Here is an account of a good impression a student had when he encountered a lecture where they would actually improve something about their programming:

Hal put the archetypical Lisp program on the blackboard:

(define (fact x)
  (if (zero? x)
      1
      (* x (fact (- x 1)))))

He walked the class through the substitution model:

(fact 5)
(* 5 (fact 4))
(* 5 (* 4 (fact 3)))
(* 5 (* 4 (* 3 (fact 2))))
(* 5 (* 4 (* 3 (* 2 (fact 1)))))
(* 5 (* 4 (* 3 (* 2 (* 1 (fact 0))))))
(* 5 (* 4 (* 3 (* 2 (* 1 1)))))
(* 5 (* 4 (* 3 (* 2 1))))
(* 5 (* 4 (* 3 2)))
(* 5 (* 4 6))
(* 5 24)
120

“This is a recursive process. At each step in the recursion we break the problem into smaller parts, solve each part separately, then combine the answers. In this example, each recursive call to fact uses a smaller number. Eventually we get to fact 0 which we know is 1. At this point we can start the multiplication.”

And then he said “This isn't very efficient.”

I thought that was an odd thing to say about a Lisp program. At Harvard, the obvious inefficiency of Lisp was downplayed. Here the professor was pointing it out and was going to do something about it.

Source: https://funcall.blogspot.com/2009/03/not-lisp-again.html