[Edu-sig] re: The trackball reality

[Arthur]

>From the Nielson quote:

>Although you could imagine a society where language was easy to learn
because people communicated by pointing to words >and icons on large menus
they carried about, humans have instead chosen to invest many years in
mastering a rich and >complex language.

Which could be said to relate to my contrarian view about Python.

Its hard as shit to learn, really. Four years into it, and I consider myself
a rank novice.

I am not extraordinarily bright, but certainly not stupid.

Why would Python seem to want to avoid identifying itself as rich, and
*complex*.  As central to its claims toward having educational value.

The best that it can be is no more complex than it needs to be to allow
empowerment at a level of depth that  - to someone like myself - is truly
interesting. Python fools me into thinking this is largely so. But I am no
expert on the alternatives.

I wish it would seem to me less agains the grain to feel that the proper
approach is promoting the learning of Python as an difficult, arduous but
worthwhile effort.  I think we set up people approaching it with other
expectations for likely defeat.

Art