[ReadFList]

>Students should have significant programming experience in Scheme, Common Lisp, Haskell, CAML or other "functional" language.

>This subject is appropriate for undergraduates who have the prerequisite experience. I know that the MIT have different standards than the rest of us, but how many students even meet this criteria?

[gumby]

Quite a few as it's an "OR" not an "AND". Maybe not that many frosh, but it's a graduate class.

I took quite a few grad classes in my last two academic years at the institute. And I even did OK in some of them. At least back then you could register for almost anything if you could get the professor to believe you wouldn't hold things back. I could imagine that hasn't changed.

[Jtsummers]

Depends on the university. Some place functional languages in the initial 2-4 course sequence which would make this an appropriate course for their students. Many others relegate functional languages to a "programming paradigms" course, which would make it less appropriate for their students.

[eindiran]

At the university I went to, all intro to CS classes were taught in a functional language: Scheme for the standard intro classes and SML/Haskell for the honors intro classes. I imagine that this true at a significant number of universities.

[a0-prw]

They have a "Don't Panic - guide for the perplexed" which includes advice about getting an editor ffs.

Nobody who has significant experience in any programming language or even in life in general needs that.

Learn to spot bullshit.

[buza]

I took this class with zero functional programming exposure as a grad student, fwiw