---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dave Ames <david.john.ames@gmail.com> To: "Nicholas H.Tollervey" <ntoll@ntoll.org>, pythonedu-wg@python.org Cc: Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2015 23:48:06 +0000 Subject: Re: [Pythonedu-wg] A new, kid-friendly Python editor
On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 20:50 Nicholas H.Tollervey <ntoll@ntoll.org> wrote:
On 22/09/15 17:46, Dave Ames wrote:
I would suspect that (rightly or wrongly) most school network technicians would be extremely wary of giving students access to a system shell of any kind.
Then most school network technicians are fools and should not have ANY input in such decisions.
NOTE: I'm highly biased about this. ;-)
N.
Absolutely no disagreement from me there. If they've configured everything correctly then access to the command line for students, should present absolutely no threat to the network. But!
The default state is "no command line", even though access to Python/Idle probably gives them at least the same level (if not more) of danger.
Dave
While that's all fine and dandy, students can be very creative (they should, if we've taught them well) and some hacks are fairly easy to research and attempt in a school environment; but the results can be disastrous and inconvenience more than just a few people.
Mind you, having said that, once you have Python installed it is an absolute no-brainer to quickly Google how to run a system command from the interactive shell (as I did last week, to try and help our tech support get PyGame Zero installed) and then the presence or absence of the Windows Command Shell is a non-issue...
Ian Harcombe