[Edu-sig] Re: The right learning environment

[Arthur Siegel]

Jeff writes  -

>Is this missing from Python UI (IDLE, PythonWin, PyCrust)?
>Couldn't these User Interfaces have an addition window
>for a lesson or other resource to appear?

One man's bug is another man's feature.

Can I ask you why it is important that the lesson appear as
a window of the user interface?  Would an html page in a browser work - that
approach having become more or less the standard way of supplementing a GUI
with help or any other text and graphic based supplementary material?

What of course is much more interesting and important is what the *content*
of those lessons will be - whether they pop out of the GUI window or exist
in a separate web page.

I plead absolutely guilty of having helped get edu-sig off on
another discussion of form at the expense of  content - ironically having
done so in trying to make the point that perhaps the interface is not at all
that important,

There seems to be some prevailing sentiment otherwise.

I will respectfully disagree, and go silent on the issue.

But would love to join any discussion of curriculum content -
about which I of course also have a host of opinions (along with a decent
amount of code).

Sad and ironic that the most satisfying discussions I have had about Python
and education have been conducted outside the
Python community - mostly with me as an advocate, and - from all I can
ell  - seeming to be making perfect sense to people. Impressive people.

And here I never get a sense of making sense at all.

Yes, I find it frustrating.

Art