On Tue, Feb 9, 2021 at 11:29 PM Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> wrote:
On 2/9/2021 8:28 PM, Inada Naoki wrote:
Note that many Python users don't use consoles.
Those of use who do may find it hard to imagine just how easy we have made computing.
My daughter minored in Computer Science about 6 years ago. She never saw Command Prompt until the summer after her Junior year when she watched me use it to install numpy and other packages for her. I had to do it because 'Run pip install numpy', etc, was met with a blank stare. I had taught her Python with IDLE, downloaded and install with a browser, and had neglected to teach her 'Dos' until then.
So had her CS classes. Those previous used Racket in a Dr. something environment and Java in, I believe, Eclipse. Also downloaded and installed with a browser.
Speaking as a current CS undergraduate student here (senior graduating in December 2021). At my university, the freshman/sophomore-level programming classes do not assume or expect any type of command line knowledge. They all rely on GUI tools (Eclipse, IntelliJ, or NetBeans for the freshman Java courses, Visual Studio for Data Structures in C++). There is one course, typically taken in either the second or third semester for traditional students, called Operating Systems Concepts and Usage, that broadly discusses how operating systems function, but is also designed as a first introduction to Linux and to the command line. (Until this point, the only operating system students are assumed to be familiar with is Windows.) For many students, this course is their first ever exposure to the command prompt. After that, students in this program don't generally *need* to touch the command line again in their studies until they hit 4000-level courses, and even then only a few courses require it. Outside of that one introductory course, I've only had two courses so far that actually required command line usage. Everything else so far has offered GUI options, even many upper level courses. I think it's a disservice to fail to expose students to the command line more and earlier, but the fact is, that failure happens and happens often, and developers need to be conscious of that. Despite my own ease and comfort with the command-line (which dates back to learning my way around DOS at the age of 5) to the point of almost always having a terminal window open on my daily Debian machine, I frequently find myself opting for point-and-click solutions to common problems, even Git operations (which are so easy and powerful in VS Code with the GitLens extension). GUI tools grow more powerful by the day, and it's very easy to get deep into a computer science program these days and not be comfortable with the command line and/or not know how to change environment variables. Python, as a common introductory language used by many thousands of people who have never taken a university computer course, never mind majoring in computer science, shouldn't have basic features that depend on the likely false assumption that the user has ever seen a command prompt or an environment variable, much less comprehend how to use them.