[Edu-sig] re: New game in town

[Arthur Siegel]

Martijn Faassen writes:

>But, we have something else you may not be aware of: the Vaults of
>Parnassus. http://www.vex.net/parnassus

>Click 'latest' for at least a nice list of recent Python software
>(and also info) announcements. It's a great resource.

Good advice. Things change. The focus of python.org does appear to be
shifting.
The Vaults are a resource I and perhaps others need to pay more attention
to.
And hopefully there will be other alternatives, like the one Stephen is
discussing.

Martijn Faassen writes:

>I didn't think Alice was being held forward as anything like a cool
>piece of Python software with a GUI that's aimed at beginners. But I
>thought Alice's aim wasn't CP4E, it was letting people play with 3d
environments.

I'm not sure what Alice's aim is. The fact is one of only a few software
efforts
on the EDU-SIG page and is described page as follows:

"Alice
A 3d virtual reality system that teaches 19-year olds without
prior programming experience to write Python scripts to control interactive
3d experiences."

Alice is a monster which I don't get - and Python and 3D is sort of my
thing. What is educational about
it in any possible sense of the word? Unless you bill it more honestly as
something that provided an educational
experience for the folks who built it. Having 19-year olds (did they say
19-year olds?) play with scripting it is serious dumbing down.
An opinion.

I seem to have a lot of them.

And I honestly hope that my stating them bluntly is not an annoyance to the
list or distructive of
the progress of EDU-SIG.

Martijn Faassen writes:

>And there it'd be nice if there was more discussion on course materials,
>and the best ways to approach teaching Python.

Hopefully. An alternative to me yakkking would be welcome by all, including
me.