[Edu-sig] Python for CS101

[ajsiegel@optonline.net]

>Also, down the road, I can see a CS curriculum which is pretty .NET centric,

To me, the spirit of Python and .Net are quite unaligned.

It seems that many of us who feel aligned with Python
feel aligned with it in spirit, more than in anything in
particular in its syntax and semantics.

If we insist that broader questions (at least loosely) related to
academic ethics are irrelevant, some of us win and some of us
lose.

Are we training programmers for industry, or mentoring hackers
to hack - why, where, when being their business?

I don't think it unreasonable to try to keep alive the notion that
at least certain kinds of academic institutions 
would and should remain a degree removed from idea of
training, and a degree committed to the idea of 
stimulating the development of more abstract skills
by way of a less goal oriented exploration.

So it is no small thing for me to hear that an insitution like
Swathmore has moved from Scheme to Java.

Which is a move - in my mind - exactly in the wrong direction.

Ted Leung blog entry of this morning being highly relevant, I thnk

http://www.sauria.com/blog/

It is also no small thing to me to feel inhibited 
from mentioning Ted's entry and hoping to stimulate some
discussion of it here - though finding no direct mention of Python in
it.

Art