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Stanford CS101 Adopts JavaScript

Posted by Soulskill on from the think-of-the-children dept.

mikejuk writes "In case further proof were needed that JavaScript shall indeed inherit the earth, we have the news that Stanford has adopted JavaScript to teach CS101 — Introduction to Computing Principles: 'The essential ideas of computing via little phrases of JavaScript code.' You can even try it out for yourself at Stanford's course page."

2 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. Re:First programming course? At Stanford?? by Dahamma · · Score: 4, Informative

    The summary is awful.

    First, this isn't even recent news, it was added *last* year.

    Second, this isn't an intro course for CS majors (or even any engineering major, or hell, even a non-engineering major interested in programming). It's basically a really high level intro to computers and "programming principles" for "fuzzies" with an irrational fear of computers (which as you say, is definitely a small group at Stanford).

    Though the lecturer (Nick Parlante) is awesome, so it's probably a fun class, and might even get some people interested in taking the real intro to programming class (CS106A).

  2. Important: This is NOT their "Intro to CS" class by comp.sci · · Score: 4, Informative

    To clarify, this class is a cursory overview of how computers work, a few basics on whats makes them tick and how to make them do fun things. This class is meant as a general education "learn about computers" effort, this is NOT their intro to CS class. Look at CS106X for programming, CS103X for discrete math, ... To repeat: Stanford is NOT teaching CS majors javascript, they are showing off what computer can do for humanities students with CS101. On a side note: I can see why most commenters would not catch this but how did the editors miss this obvious fact? Do a tiny bit of background research (aka click their link) and you will see how this summary is entirely misleading.