Mailman 3 December 2001 - Edu-sig

Python sound.
by Robert Rickenbrode 02 Jan '02

02 Jan '02

Hey folks, I'm having the kids use the winsound.Beep library to write programs that play Christmas carols. I had in mind to switch to the Snack wrapper functions to switch to nicer sounding notes that play through the audio card/speakers, but... I seem to be having some trouble getting Snack to play and really don't like the fact that it has to pop-open a root window using Tk (we've not discussed GUIs yet). Does anyone know about either: 1. Another nice windows compatible sound library for python; or, 2. How to get Snack to play notes in series with either the Tk root window closed or minimized? Thanks, Rob __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctions for all of your unique holiday gifts! Buy at http://shopping.yahoo.com or bid at http://auctions.yahoo.com

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Pygame article
by Burley, Brent 27 Dec '01

27 Dec '01

I just came across this O'Reilly article about Pygame, the Python Game library, http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2001/12/20/pygame.html. It gives an overview and a short example of moving a sprite around the screen with the arrow keys. The article also mentions "Severance, Blade of Darkness", a recently released commercial game from Codemasters, which includes an embedded python interpreter, http://www.codemasters.com/severance/front.htm. In fact, a python console can be launched from the game by giving a "-console" command line argument. It's been speculated on the net that as much as 90% of the game has been coded in python and it's also been reported that much of the source is included with the game as '.py' files (nearly half a million lines on one report). A personal testimonial: My nephew is a high school senior and has been programming with pygame for a few months. He's been learning python on his own (with much success I might add) on my suggestion as his C++ courses at school have been moving too slow for him to be able to do anything "interesting". He was just telling me that after a year and a half they are finally getting to "classes" in C++ and he was surprised at how much ahead of the game he was having been exposed to python classes with pygame. It's also worth noting that pygame is useful for projects other than games. There's a handful of apps on the pygame site, http://www.pygame.org including the San Diego Zoo Panda Cam and even a full-featured UI toolkit. Brent

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Encouraging students to plan effectively
by Timothy Wilson 15 Dec '01

15 Dec '01

Hi everyone, I'm interested in hearing some strategies that I can use for foster good planning on the part of students in my classes. We're just starting our latest project (http://www.isd197.org/sibley/cs/icp/assignments/portfolio_html) and I'm going to have them working in teams of four (a pair of programming pairs). Do you have a formal way of encouraging (enforcing?) a planning process? Does anyone use UML when they get to OOP? (We're not quite there yet.) -Tim -- Tim Wilson | Visit Sibley online: | Check out: Henry Sibley HS | http://www.isd197.org | http://www.zope.com W. St. Paul, MN | | http://slashdot.org wilson(a)visi.com | <dtml-var pithy_quote> | http://linux.com

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Encouraging students to plan
by Matthias Felleisen 13 Dec '01

13 Dec '01

You may wish to check out "How to Design Programs" (MIT Press 2001, also avalibale at htdp.org). It introduces the notion of a "design recipe" where a teacher can check several intermediate design steps systematically. It's mostly functional but you should be able to adapt it to Python. -- Matthias

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Re: Encouraging students to plan
by Jeff Sandys 12 Dec '01

12 Dec '01

I have asked the students to do a storyboard frame, a picture and short discription of what the program or sub-program is intended to do. It should list the inputs, outputs and actions. When a student asks me a question the first thing I ask to see is their plan. when advanced students do projects for teachers, I ask them to write a contract, or oppertunity evaluation in P+ terms. This is just an informal statement of what the program should do. Then they do the storyboards. I am currently doing this with Logo and plan to continue using the same process with Python. Thanks, Jeff Sandys __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctions for all of your unique holiday gifts! Buy at http://shopping.yahoo.com or bid at http://auctions.yahoo.com

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Curses.
by Robert Rickenbrode II 08 Dec '01

08 Dec '01

Hey folks, can someone recommend a curses-like module for Windows? Thanks, Rob Robert K. Rickenbrode II rkr_ii(a)yahoo.com

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Re: Who is teaching Python
by Jeff Sandys 07 Dec '01

07 Dec '01

Christine Shannon <shannon(a)centre.edu> wrote: > > Our students run the gamut ... fine arts majors who are exploring. How was the Python learning experience for the fine arts majors? I remember a neat abstract painting Python applications that was also intended to be used for teaching Python, but I can't find a link for it. Can anyone help? > I have use three different ones <text books> so far ... > The level is either too elementary or ... Which 3 books did you use? Kirby Urner <urnerk(a)qwest.net> wrote: > More in the pipeline -- Python teaching texts -- geared > towards using with students ... Are any of these texts appropriate for middle school students? Thanks, Jeff Sandys __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send your FREE holiday greetings online! http://greetings.yahoo.com

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Python Teaching Texts for non-computer types
by Nora Wirtschafter 07 Dec '01

07 Dec '01

Christine -- I, too, had great difficulty in finding a book with the kind of teaching material I want. Therefore, I ended up writing a book that I have now used for three semesters and am pleased with. I'm still in the process of trying to get it published by a major publishing company because the editors feel that there is not a market, and I would prefer not to self publish at this point. My text includes presentation of a concept, then examples (often in a FULL program, not just a program section), review exercises and a number of student programming assignments at the end of each chapter. Concepts build from chapter to chapter, so it really is a teaching text rather than a reference book. It is certainly not an all-inclusive Python tome, but the content is quite teachable in a semester. If I find a publisher who thinks the product is marketable, I will certainly let you know. Nora << Original message attached >> --------------------------------------- Original Email From: Christine Shannon <shannon(a)centre.edu> Sent: 12/06/2001 01:23 PM To: edu-sig(a)python.org Subject: [Edu-sig] Who is teaching Python At Centre College we have been teaching Python as the first programming language for the past three semesters with very good results. I will be leading a Birds-of-a-Feather session on it at the SIGCSE meeting this year in Northern KY. Our students run the gamut from computer science majors to math and science majors who are taking this for their major to fine arts majors who are exploring. They learn enough about object oriented programming so that those who go on to Data Structures are able to make a good transition to Java. The text book situation is a problem. I have use three different ones so far and have not really been satisfied with any of them. The level is either too elementary or they are written as though this is at least a second programming language for the reader. Most of the on-line documentation is very good but students usually want a book. Christine Shannon

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Questions, comments, and other
by WHITSTON＠ltu.edu 07 Dec '01

07 Dec '01

To all: Question 1: Does Python support relative files directly (the manuals and books I've looked don't address that type of file structure, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't)? Question 2: One of my students is looking for "curses.py" -- does anyone know where I might find this module (given its name and the fact there is a "curses.h" in C, could I safety assume it is "dead" or at least not in common use any more...)? Comments 1: Python in Schools -- my poster for "Using Python as an Introduction to Programming for Engineering Students" has been accepted for SIGCSE 2002. Comments 2: One of my Senior Project groups is doing their presentation using VPython for "Data Structures and Sorting Algorithms by Visual Means" on Thursday, December 13th at 4:30pm at Lawrence Tech. Univ. (if you are in the Detroit area, you are welcome to attend -- e-mail me for directions and room location) Howard Whitston Lawrence Tech. Univ. whitston(a)ltu.edu

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re: Questions, comments, and other
by arthur.siegel＠rsmi.com 07 Dec '01

07 Dec '01

Howard writes - >Comments 1: >Python in Schools -- my poster for "Using Python as an Introduction to >Programming for Engineering Students" has been accepted for SIGCSE 2002. Could you elaborate a bit. Is there a public document? I am particularly interested becasue I recently gave a presentation at an engineering university in NY - the math department. That presentation could end up leading to some collaborative work between the CS and math departments there. Python can be a glue language in a new sense in these kinds of environments. Its potential to facilitate interdiscliplinary and interdepartment collaboration is enormously exciting - and quite real, IMO. Art

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