Hacker News Reader

Comment by bmitc | Hacker News Reader

The downside is that part two is the software stack and the software grader only supports Python and Java.

Not when I took it! I did most of those assignments in Haskell (a choice I came to regret). Double-checking and it seems the grader supports the following languages: C, C++, C#, Elixir, Erlang, Go, Haskell, Java, Lua, Node.js, Perl, PHP, Python 2.7, Python 3, Ruby, Rust, Scala, Swift.

Oh really? I was going off their own FAQ since the graded items requiring paying, and I didn’t want to do it if I couldn’t use the languages I wanted, namely F# and Racket.

From the FAQ:

> > Which programming language do I have to use in order to complete the assignments in this course?

> We expect learners to submit assignments in any version of Java, or Python. We will assume that you have basic programming ability in these languages, including a basic ability to understand and write simple object-based programs.

So is their FAQ out of date I guess?

Yeah, I guess the FAQ is out of date. Think you should be to sign up for free if you want to check for yourself. I highly recommend it! And F# would be a pretty great language for this course, I think. Looks like no Racket (or any Lisp) support, though.

Yea, I have already done the first course part and then the assembler, which is in F# and linked in one of my other comments.

Thanks for letting me know about the extended grader support.

It's reasonable to support one great programming language along with Java, which is kind of a market standard.

I didn’t say it wasn’t reasonable, but it is a downside for those wanting to do something different.

I’d prefer they tested emitted code, that way you can use anything you want.

They'd need to maintain trusted sandboxed environments for every supported compiler/interpreter. That's a lot of work.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com