[ck113]

I don't have an opinion about the Scheme -> Python switch, but I didn't find this a very compelling objection.

The author seems to assume that a CS degree is meant to teach you to write software. (E.g., "how exactly do you write software if you don't start with small working primitives (like unit tested classes, PLT scheme modules, or a PHP library script)? Isn't taking a complex problem and breaking it down into testable/reliable chunks a fundamental principal of writing software?") But who said anything about writing software? Certainly many CS grads do go on to write a fair amount of it, but it's hardly the only goal of the curriculum, especially at a place like MIT, where a CS grad is as likely to go on to a career in research as in programming.

The priorities here seem frankly bizarre; the author derides learning about "electricity whizzing through CPUs", but the principles governing how CPUs work are way more core to computer science than is unit testing, which is more of an industry best-practice than a deep principle.

Looking at it another way, a full education in CS is going to have to cover everything from processor hardware to programming techniques to theoretical foundations. Intro courses at most schools have tended to focus almost exclusively on programming. The old SICP-based intro course at MIT blended programming with a taste of theory, and the new intro course sounds like it will switch to blending programming with a taste of hardware and a crash course in real-world problems like faulty and undocumented libraries. I wouldn't say that's obviously a good move, but it's not obviously wrong, and it doesn't seem any less true to the soul of computer science.