So, is 6.001 the one and only...

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<p>…way to ComputerScience success.</p>

<p>Please check this article. According to this guy, only schools that teach 6.001 offer adequate training. The rest is junk.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html[/url]”>http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I’m a prospective CS major and I prefer the LACs and other small balanced universities and I love Williams. The thing is that this guy suggests that 6.001 is the only way to go and is offered at BigName schools like Yale or MIT…</p>

<p>any input?</p>

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<p>It’s a controversial subject, but it’s not an unreasonable position. He’s not saying that JAVA schools can’t provide adequate training, he’s saying “Java is not, generally, a hard enough programming language that it can be used to discriminate between great programmers and mediocre programmers”.</p>

<p>The real question that you have to assess for yourself with a small LAC for CS is whether they have enough critical mass to make everyone at least try things like functional programming, thinking recursively and using pointers. A consideration in a small school is always that if they made the CS major too hard, would they have any CS majors left. I suspect that the very top LACs would still be hard enough, but it’s a great question to probe further with each one of them.</p>