RE: [Edu-sig] re: Python Programming: An Introduction toComputerScience
As a student who has gone through VB first (freshmen year), and then CS1&2 with Jeff Elkner, I can reassure you that the way the children are learning VB is completely useless, and none of it will stay with them. Furthermore, it doesn't get them interested in programming at all, and the children don't walk out of the class with -any- knowledge. In example, during CS1 I hadn't the faintest clue as to what a function was, and why they were used, and I was one of the "best" in the VB class. Even though in VB, we used function, the concepts just weren't taught. So basically the Business area is a failure in my eyes, and doesn't really cover programming. Unfortuantly I just don't see python covering the VB niche, because of it's non-visual nature, and I can't really see a good argument for it being in the Business curriculum. Nicholas Wheeler Yorktown Highschool [Insert intersting stuff here]
And VB sucks.
Art
This part I agree with, and any outrage attaches to this, more than to any presumption regarding the impropriety of proprietary programming languages.
Kirby
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Quoth Nicholas,
As a student who has gone through VB first (freshmen year), and then CS1&2 with Jeff Elkner, I can reassure you that the way the children are learning VB is completely useless, and none of it will stay with them. Furthermore, it doesn't get them interested in programming at all, and the children don't walk out of the class with -any- knowledge. In example, during CS1 I hadn't the faintest clue as to what a function was, and why they were used, and I was one of the "best" in the VB class. Even though in VB, we used function, the concepts just weren't taught. So basically the Business area is a failure in my eyes, and doesn't really cover programming. Unfortuantly I just don't see python covering the VB niche, because of it's non-visual nature, and I can't really see a good argument for it being in the Business curriculum.
Python doesn't isn't necessarily lacking a visual nature, it just isn't bound tightly to an IDE/Visual Designer/Database. There are an embarassment of GUI tools, visual builders, IDEs, and databases to choose from, as well as more advanced tools for 2D, 3D, etc. What Python could benefit by is *packaging* a default selection of these tools put together to appeal to VB users, especially now that VB.net is essentially a different syntax for C# and not an easy-to-use scripting language (this opens an opportunity for Python in the Windows world, IMHO). With the WinPython package installed you can do anything from Python that you can do from VB, including (if I recall correctly, I don't have my copy of "Win32 Programming with Python handy) creating a UI with VB and scripting it with Python. It's interesting that VB is so poorly taught, and I'm very glad that Python is taught well, but I wouldn't rule out Python for business users. --Dethe "I started with nothing, and I still have most of it." -- Steven Wright
I'm afraid one of the almost certain results of any wide spread adoption of Python in schools is that Python will be poorly taught as well :-( I would know we had "arrived" when there is a Shelly Cashman book on Python, and I would pitty the poor students who had to suffer through using it. To change that we would need to change the way curriculum is developed and implemented, a worthy, but much more radical goal. I believe using free, community oriented tools like Python goes a long way toward helping in that cause, but it is only part of it. On Thu, 2003-12-18 at 23:00, Dethe Elza wrote:
It's interesting that VB is so poorly taught, and I'm very glad that Python is taught well, but I wouldn't rule out Python for business users.
--Dethe
-- Jeffrey Elkner <jeff@elkner.net> Open Book Project <http://ibiblio.org/obp>
failure in my eyes, and doesn't really cover programming. Unfortuantly I just don't see python covering the VB niche, because of it's non-visual nature, and I can't really see a good argument for it being in the Business curriculum.
I think the quickest/easiest way to get a business face on Python, in the sense of a visual front end, is to do some simple cgi stuff. Use the browser and its <FORM></FORM> tags to provide interactive widgets, not Tk, not wxPython (the latter could come later). This isn't to say I'm opposed to the graphics.py type exercises ala John Zelle. But in business, ecommerce is more the thing. Even intranets use the browser these days. Plus business *has* to introduce SQL (I can't imagine leaving this out), so a relational database simply *must* be in the picture. In the business context, the goal is to see how a programming language gets between the browser and a database. Python is good at this. Kirby
participants (4)
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Dethe Elza -
Jeffrey Elkner -
Kirby Urner -
Nicholas Wheeler