hello, i teach multimedia and web design at an art school as part of a curriculum that includes neon, kinetics, holography, microcontrollers, digital imaging and video, and pretty much anything else that involves technology. a lot of the problems our students run across require programming of one kind or another, and this trend seems to be increasing. my courses concentrate on programming a good deal, using javascript, flash/actionscript, or director/lingo for websites, cd-roms, gallery installations, etc. however, a good part of every semester is taken up with basic programming concepts before we can get to the "good stuff". i'd like to introduce a solid programming class at the foundation level, and python seems like an interesting possibility. i haven't learned it yet, but have been working in c++, java, perl, etc. for a while so hopefully i can get a handle on it by september <g>. the problem with the approach we've been using (javascript, lingo, or actionscript as an introduction) is that each of these languages has a lot of features and quirks which are very unique, which gets in the way of teaching general programming concepts. i'd like to use something that will let me teach core concepts quickly without getting stuck on too many language- specific details. at the same time, whatever i use will have to be something that students can use to produce interesting results quickly as well - since this is an art school, we're really interested in artistic applications of programming rather than, say, calculating compound interest or the traveling salesman problem. so, my question is - has anyone used python for teaching art students? does this sound like a reasonable thing to do? oh, one problem - it won't even be a full semester course, but just 5 weeks - the foundation class also spends 5 weeks on sound and 5 on electronics. not my choice, just the way the curriculum is structured. so what i'd want to be able to do is get students going with python, understand some basic programming concepts like variables, math, strings, functions, and hopefully events, and be able to make something simple but visually pleasing. does that sound possible? thanks, Ben Chang bchang@artic.edu Department of Art and Technology Studies School of the Art Institute Chicago, IL