[Edu-sig] PEPTALK: path sanity and newbie mental health -- please help

[Jason Cunliffe]

> Under Windows, the easiest way to do this is to place a shortcut for
> Python, IDLE or whatever in the directory where you are working. Just
> make sure that the "Start in:" entry of the shortcut is blank, and the
> program will fire up using the directory it's currently in as the
> default working directory. Since Python will load modules from the
> current directory, this is a quick and easy way to work on your programs
> without doing any path futzing at all.

John

Thanks -- this is an great little tip.
Navigating directories has been also another rather obscure and tedious
aspect of using Python.
An unnecessary one too I feel.   mkdir chdir etc take some sleuthing.
My google research tells me others have been quite perplexed by these simple
tasks.
...more broken beer bottles and tire shreds on the on-ramp of the Python
Super Highway...

I suspect I've been dangerously corrupted by using Rebol's "simple tasks
should be simple" philosophy.
And also by myriad sophisticated multimedia apps - which all recognize users
need for strong configuration and customization access.

I am not proposing to dumb python down -- rather to smarten it up.
>From a marketing perspective it would be something like -- so ask users
especially  teachers and newbies what are ten major obstacles they remember
when getting up to speed on Python. Then see if there is are sensible
improvements which address some of those experiences.

This is not about modifying the language - it is about acknowledging valid
needs, workflow and assumptions, especially for beginners.
Python is awesome and worth every effort as lifetime skill I feel.

Jason