On 5/26/07, Jeff Rush <jeff@taupro.com> wrote:
I tossed together a very rough wiki page of some ideas I've been kicking around. These resources attempt to answer a response I get frequently when I push the learning of Python, that of "but what would I -do- with Python once I learned it?".
http://wiki.python.org/moin/Advocacy/ProgrammingForNewprogrammers
Thanks for getting this going. Re: http://wiki.python.org/moin/ConceptualRoadmap I'd suggest delisting VPython as one of the interpreters (amidst Jython and IronPython) because it's not really a Python shell or interpreter, offering interactive use of the language, but a C++ library and API focussed on OpenGL type stuff pretty exclusively. VPython is like wxPython in that sense, but with a different purpose (tho partially overlapping as wx provides a window into OpenGL -- which I've never used very successfully (whereas VPython has been at the basis of several Pythonic math courses I've taught)). VPython does integrate with IDLE pretty well, which is maybe where this impression of VPython being its own Python interpreter is coming from. iPython is a wrapper for CPython that doesn't use Tk or IDLE -- or is it a wrapper for Jython as well? I've used it, but haven't explored it in great depth. Seem to recall needing ctypes to run it, at least on a Windows box. I think CP4E ultimately requires stepping outside the scope of any one language and getting more into the bigger picture. I think a basic understanding of tcp/ip is maybe where to start with a lot of students. There's a basic "how it works" flavor to it. I suggest screening 'Warriors of the Net' for starters, which comes in a variety of languages, could come in even more. Kirby