[vostok]

> It's now possible to make your way through a university education in CS without ever touching or understanding C. This is a problem.

I did not study CS, but I had a number of CS modules/classes. LaTeX was the only programming language I recall using. Students with better handwriting could probably get away with not doing any programming at all.

It's not clear to me that this is a problem, but I imagine that the systems requirement of most CS programs will involve C.

For what it's worth, I default to python in interviews even though it's my least favorite out of the languages that I use frequently.

[ageofwant]

> I default to python in interviews even though it's my least favorite out of the languages that I use frequently.

Why is that ? I would image that you'd use the language you are most comfortable with and trust the most during an interview ? What makes Python a good 'interview' language but a less good bread and butter language for you ?

[vostok]

I find that python requires the least boilerplate code out of the most common programming languages. I mostly dislike it on aesthetic grounds.

I really like the modern incarnations of C++ and statically typed ML-influenced, but not necessarily ML-derived, languages.

There are many criticisms that one could make about R, but I like some of its lispier features.

[jonathankoren]

If he's listing LaTeX as a programming language and talking about how little programming he had, I suspect he's stuck with R or Matlab.

[spicyj]

TeX is a "real" programming language.

[kevin_thibedeau]

It's a macro expander. Good luck debugging that.

[jonathankoren]

If you're taking CS classes and boasting about how you don't know how to program, it is a problem.

[yzmtf2008]

In many more theoretical CS classes, programming is not a requirement.

[jonathankoren]

There's a word for that. It's "math".

[Zalastax]

Computer Science and maths are heavily intertwined [1], just like physics and maths are.

[1]: http://math.stackexchange.com/q/649408