Art, have you actually *read* the CP4E proposal? Or are you basing your rejection still on the article I wrote for LJ?
Certainly yes. though I haven't reread it recently, and I can't say its fresh in specifcs.
I am not so naive to expect that most children of 7-8 years old can learn to program -- though there definitely have been unusually talented children that young who *have* used Python (and everything else from Basic to assembler) successfully to create what can only be called computer programs.
All I'm lobbying for really is some precision in language (and that request coming from someone yet to get through a three line newsgroup post without a misspelling). A newbie in discussion is anyone from an MIT grad with six languages under his belt looking at Python as a 7th, to a 7th grader who comes to Python as a typical 7th grader. A non-progammer is either a Phd physicist working with Python at the frontiers of science doing, say, molecular modeling, to back to our 7th grader. "Programming" is I don't what, depending on who is using the word, in what context, for what effect. I think *that* has been the source of confusion, misunderstanding, and a few blow-ups along the way. All I am pleading for is some clearer definition of terms, at least when you or others or I are discussing, for example, a language change possibility addressing, for example, the needs of newbies. The MIT grad, or the 7th grader? If we are talking about non-programmers - are they content to be non-progammers? It they are, I make the suggestion we be content to let them stay non-progammers. You, it seems to me, have enough to do to worry about with folks who *want* to understand programming, are willing to work at it, and are looking for a way in. Again, the point being the semantics have been all over the place, and it has been hard to acutally *discuss* much of anything in this area, as far as I am concerned. Other than that - we are actually in agreement about a lot. Obviously, for example, I agree with your statement that Python is wonderfully configured as a first language (except for this damn problem of having to import copy :) ). We may disagree as to when it is realistic to introduce it, but there I am really just pulling a gut opinion out of my posterior - which happens, BTW, to be where my Zen intuition hangs out.. Art