So I've been cavorting in J-world some (Jsoftware.com). That's another math-through-programming REPL, in the tradition of APL and ISETL. Been blogging as usual, plus watching the EuroPython thing gel. A local gig in the private sector led to a big Chicago-based firm thinking highly of Python (some buzzcrawler app my friend Patrick wrote, after attending my classes). I get the impression that word is still spreading, the buzz about Python still getting going. Like this head hunter I talked recently with was just starting to learn about Python. I pointed her to O'Reilly's famous "history of programming languages" time line (not up to date, but still highly informative). Follow-up meeting on Tuesday. Our Portland User Group (PUG) list has been fun lately, with basic / core Python advice (Jason sure knows those itertools). I'm still working with TECC, an Alaska based charter still on the drawing board, and a possible outlet for Pythonic Math products, forged here in Bridge City aka Portland. LEP High, off the drawing board (in the sense of fully operational) already had me in for a test drive. Heavy emphasis on peer-to-peer learning, like with Kusasa. TECC's founder, Anna Roys, walked away with my copy of John Zelle's book (my gift to her youngest). Her family already invests in C++, or was it C#. Anyway, there's definitely a talent pool around Anchorage taking shape on my radar (I haven't managed to jet up there yet though -- way busy in PDX). More on the math-teach list (Math Forum @ Drexel). So we'll probably do cellular automata, fractals, the kind of eye candy stuff we've talked a whole lot about here over the years (surprise surprise).Kevin's PythonCard demos also fit here, plus lead into code samples around how to leverage wxPython (see below). Portland is heavily into nanotech. Seems like CA studies and nanotech also wind up co-mingling. I find it useful to distinguish between Python packages written by pro programmers like Kevin, and helpful to students in various walks of life (e.g. Alice, no longer in Python), versus more Pippy-like stuff, where the assumption is that users want direct access to some calculator-like REPL, will do their own coding, maybe with some scaffolding (e.g. a vector class, or something to write povray or x3d files (why reinvent the wheel?)). My company's output has focused mostly on the Pippy-like angle, moving to other APIs only recently. Others here are into providing deeper packages, stuff students might use without trying to poke around in the source code too much, which code is way above the beginner level. Doesn't mean they can't do that eventually of course. Go back to that turtle, figure out what made it tick. In between, are self-teaching products, i.e. learning tools that also teach how to write rather elaborate programs (way above the "sequences and series" of OEIS vintage that I focus on -- using Python generators more often than not (many examples already given, I'll spare you the repetition, plus "next syntax" has changed with 3.x, so a lot of my stuff needs a rewrite)). PyGeo falls into this category (a self-teaching product), in that Arthur was looking to new recruit bona fide "code warriors", not just students of projective geometry (the knowledge domain for this package). Environments like Leo suggest themselves at this juncture, as if you're taking students deep into a source code forest, a lot will depend on friendly documentation, a sense that you have a clear guide. The fact of a Unicode basis also means these heavily documented code piles take internationalization for granted (not true when I was first cutting teeth as a coder of text based, then GUI apps). Python is such a fertile mixing ground because it attracts the minimalist REPL people, coming from Iverson's APL/J pipeline, (I'd count myself in this group), *and* maximalist writers of "big code" such as Zope. We don't exactly compete, just come from different ends on the spectrum, meeting in some happy middle ground. A lot of us wear more than one hat on this small-to-large spectrum, e.g. write unit tested embellishments by day, as part of a team, churn out reams of disposable hobby code by night ("programming just for the fun of it"). IDLE itself is a good symbol of this middle ground, in that it's what gives minimalists their 5-10 liners, tiny modules of 2-3 classes (4D Solutions: permutations, game of life on a hexapent, fractals, NKS stuff, polyhedra...), yet is itself a substantial package, based around Tkinter, and requiring a team of maintainers, continuing what Guido started. Along one path you might move to MathCad say, or some other terse notation (generators first, sigma notation to follow). Along another, you could drill down into IDLE or Pygeo or Plone or whatever, and start seeing what deep, complicated Python programs look like under the hood. Keep digging to the system layer and below, if that's your calling (all the way to the chip in some cases). In sum, what I like about Python is that you can introduce it without too much bias, to both "minimalists" and "maximalists". Students at the intro level get to share the same basic curriculum, and yet divide up at the next level, now having more to go on to make an informed choice -- exactly what one wants in a CS0 (or in some exotic hybrid "gnu math" sequence such as we're sourcing from Portland). Kirby 4Dsolutions.net