Re: [Edu-sig] Using IDLE with students
I run into this a lot, and I find that it's very very difficult to explain what's going on to kids who are just getting their feet wet.
The problem that I run into is that the livewires graphics package doesn't behave properly unless the -n is used. Here's a link with some background: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2005-November/005583.html I think I've run into other packages that also have problems but livewires is the one I'm sure about. This has been a real problem for me. Andy
The subprocess idea is important I agree. Also, psychologically, we would like students to see putting code in a module as "canning for later" i.e. there's a strong prejudice against thinking of the current session namespace as containing anything vital to the operations of the module. Picturing emailing the code to a distant user who has never once booted Python is another mental exercise one might use. Kirby
On Thursday 16 August 2007 8:01 am, Andy Judkis wrote:
This is why I prefer the new IDLE running in the standard (not -n mode). It really is much better to keep the running script isolated in a subprocess. <<snip>>
This is also certainly true. Getting my simple graphics package (graphics.py) to play nicely with IDLE was a pain, and it has really taken on hit on efficiency as a result. I am thinking of reverting to a non-threaded version, but that would require IDLE to be run with the -n switch. Of course, the problem I'm running into now is that many folks are running IDLE with -n, and my graphics package does not run well in that mode (although an older version that I still make available runs quite well). Another alternative is to use IDLE for as a development environment but do use a regular python session from a command prompt for doing interactive noodling around with packages that also run under Tk. There's just no good way around the "deuling event loops" problem in Tk (at least not on Windows, Linux is less of a problem). --John -- John M. Zelle, Ph.D. Wartburg College Professor of Computer Science Waverly, IA john.zelle@wartburg.edu (319) 352-8360
participants (3)
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Andy Judkis
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John Zelle
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kirby urner