Addressing the disconnect between the good and the popular

For several decades universities have taught programming languages as a fundamental part of their undergraduate curriculum. These courses cover the core topics used in the design of good programming languages. However, widely used commercial languages quite often seem to go against the conventional wisdom of good language design that is taught in these courses. This disconnect between what is taught as good language design and what languages are used in industry has put the programming language course in a bind. Specifically, as computer science departments feel the increased pressure to add new emerging topics, many departments are choosing to remove the programming language course from the core curriculum. In this position paper, we argue that the disconnect between good language design and industry practice is exactly why a programming language course should be a crucial ingredient in any undergraduate computer science education. © 2008 ACM.