[Chicago] python intro for 13 yo -- suggestions?

[Ian Bicking]

Michael Tobis wrote:
> Yes! Exactly! That's the environment we need.
> 
> However, the question is whether the browser buys you enough to be
> worth the hassle.

It buys you sharing (potentially), which is definitely worth the hassle. 
  Of course, *Python* isn't so good for that because it doesn't have the 
security model of Javascript, so Python in the browser doesn't currently 
give you very good sharing.

> See, I'd like to expose some subset of Python to the user, not some
> subset of Javascript. SImple code generation tricks may suffice here.
> This means the environment has Javascript (in that Ajaxy way) but at
> least the beginner

Debugging will be a pain, but maybe with pyjamas or pypy's Javascript 
backend you could do it.  Javascript isn't that fun to debug anyway.  Or 
something like HTConsole uses the browser as a rendering medium, not as 
an execution medium, and so it kind of gives you Python in the browser; 
but you lose the security in the process.

> My intended audience is not the same as the intended audience most
> edupython projects are aimed at. Javascript is not a platform for
> science. I have curriculum other than programming that I want to
> deliver, using modest amounts of programming as a medium of expression
> and a tool.
> 
> I could do this with code generation, I suppose, but that's an extra
> layer of complexity. Also, I'm not a full-time programmer and I
> already have to cope with three languages on a regular basis, so as a
> developer of content, learning enough Javascript is a serious hurdle
> for me and other science and engineering educators.
> 
> So what does targetting the browser as the user platform buy me, given
> that my desire is, at least in part, not so much to teach programming
> concepts as to teach something else and use Python.

Interactive curriculum development seems to be the point of Logo Wiki 
(http://logowiki.net/ -- which has been talked about in a parallel 
discussion on edu-sig: 
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2006-July/006671.html) and it 
seems like Crunchy Frog has some similar motivations.  Programming can 
be a medium in itself, a very explicit way of expressing relationships 
and algorithms.  As such, "scientific computing" is not necessarily the 
only use for programming in teaching science.  For finite element 
analysis, sure, but for explaining something like Newtonian physics, or 
providing richer or explorable frontends to simulation systems, you 
don't need traditional scientific computing environments.

OTOH, it's not entirely clear what the advantage of embedded programming 
is over plain static website creation (like a normal wiki), so I suppose 
that would have to be identified in some fashion.  HTSQL might be of 
some interest here: http://htsql.org/ -- since you can't just put a 
database on the web, and yet databases are really interesting things to 
interact with, and that's part of what it's intended for.  Really, 
databases are more interesting than graphics (2D or 3D), and much of 
what people describe using HyperCard for is actually primitive 
databases.  I haven't heard anyone mention graphics (beyond the static 
graphics the web already does well with).


-- 
Ian Bicking  |  ianb at colorstudy.com  |  http://blog.ianbicking.org