>They chose Python since it's essentially a free, open-source alternative to Matlab.
Different domains of education had different reasons but some classes had nothing to do with Matlab.
- The professor Gerry Sussman of the famous MIT 6.001 SICP class said they switched from Scheme to Python because (paraphrasing) it's more high-level with libraries to get immediate work done. (E.g. A class project to control a robot.)
- Peter Norvig teaching Artificial Intelligence classes switched from Lisp to Python because he noticed his students kept getting stuck on Lisp syntax instead of progressing on the more important AI concepts. Switching to Python made teaching the class easier.
One can google for their interviews on why they switched to Python.
Why didn't they use Scheme? That was pushed by a very prestigious institution so had some momentum in the education field. Instead they switched to Python and basically nobody uses Scheme to teach any longer. Python won because people preferred it over lisp, simple as that.
Teaching Scheme etc always got pushback from the outside, because regardless of how well it works for education, people get it in their head that you are teaching something that "industry doesn't use" and thus is bad.
Different domains of education had different reasons but some classes had nothing to do with Matlab.
- The professor Gerry Sussman of the famous MIT 6.001 SICP class said they switched from Scheme to Python because (paraphrasing) it's more high-level with libraries to get immediate work done. (E.g. A class project to control a robot.)
- Peter Norvig teaching Artificial Intelligence classes switched from Lisp to Python because he noticed his students kept getting stuck on Lisp syntax instead of progressing on the more important AI concepts. Switching to Python made teaching the class easier.
One can google for their interviews on why they switched to Python.