This story has been reposted many times, and I think GJS's remarks (as recorded by Andy Wingo) are …

Thanks for this detailed explanation. A semi-off-topic side question: > the students were supposed to each get a software radio and build a Wi-Fi-like system (the software radios proved difficult and, much later, I helped make this an acoustic modem project). What was the reason why the software radios proved difficult?

This comment so obviously belongs on https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights that it's maybe a good occasion to mention that https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights exists. Thanks! (and sorry for offtopicness)

MIT "units" of class divided by 3 = other American university credits. 3, 4, and 5 credits would be 9, 12 and 15 units; generally 15 units includes lab time, although there are more or less pure lab classes too. credits are hours spent in class per week, and units are ostensibly hours of class plus homework, except it's a lie, there is much more homework than that.

Thanks for the history. I was an undergrad at the time and remember having a choice between 6.001 and 6.01. I don’t think I formally switched into course 6 yet and by the time I did, 6.01 was the only option.

> There were four 15-unit courses, each about one of these "languages": The description you offer is strange to me. The Lisp family of languages are multi-paradigm (arguably paradigm-independent) and can hardly be called "procedural". The core material of SICP revolves around considering the "means of combination" and "means of abstraction" offered by a programming language — concepts that sound to me like they have far more to do with "structure", "architecture" and "functionality" than with "procedure".

Thanks for this history, very interesting! I guess I can see the reasoning there, but as an Econ major who took 6.001 for fun, it makes me a little sad. That class was mindbending and so interesting.

Hi Keith! Another consideration was that the core computer programming skills needed to be taught more broadly to basically everyone and not just course 6 students. Source: I shared an office with Keith next to Hal and Gerry--he taught me Java! Fun anecdote: we had to move RMS's stuff to the new CSAIL building because he had broken his arm punching a wall.

A useful reminder that economics plays as much, if not more import in what is taught and how it is taught, as any pedagogical drive. If attendance drops, universities can pivot. Gotta get the bums on seats. 20 years ago Cisco came shopping in Australia for ee grads who could do microcode. The US degree mills had stopped teaching students how to code an edge case for most jobs, and the router and switch vendor had to find places who still did that.