[Edu-sig] re: promoting computer literacy through programming python

[Kirby Urner]

> My Zen on the issues, and nothing more.  But I feel strongly, and I think
> there is enough merit to require some evidence, counter-argument to reject
> out-of-hand in a study attempting some scientific grounding.
> 
> Art

I didn't quite get your point Art.  

It sounds to me like you were agreeing with Dethe that programming is
difficult, beyond the trivial things like 0-based indexing or case
sensitivity.

But I thought John took that up, as a kind of tension, e.g. in math class
how relevant would it be to move towards the "most concise" form of an
algorithm, once you've already got a working version?  He made the analogy
to rhetoric.  Perhaps in math class, we just don't have time to always buff
and polish our rough and ready efforts.  I'd tend to agree.

Were you perhaps alluding to other difficulties we've discussed, such as
Python's "by reference" approach, and the resultant confusions about "same
as" versus "copy of" that might arise, say, when you go 'm = [1,2,3]' and
then 'n = m' (so now n and m both reference the very same object)?

If so, I think you should be less elliptical.

Kirby