[Edu-sig] ANN: Rur-ple 0.95 has been released

[Andre Roberge]

RUR-PLE 0.95 has been released.

A link to the download page can be found at
http://rur-ple.sourceforge.net

(The site is slightly out of date, and there is no plan to update it
in the future as it provides an excellent idea of what RUR-PLE is about.)

This new version contains a few bug fixes and it should now work properly
on MacOS. wxPython 2.6+ is strongly recommmended.
There has been a few minor changes in the robot instructions, and the
lessons has undergone some major changes.

RUR-PLE stands for Roberge's Used Robot: a Python Learning Environment.

This learning environment contains four main elements:

1. A simple html browser to look at the documentation and, potentially,
the lessons.  However, the new lessons use cascading style sheets which
cannot be interpreted correctly by the browser.  Usage of an external
browser (Firefox :-) is strongly recommended.
2. A "robot world" with a robot that can accomplish tasks through Python
programs.
3. A built-in interpreter which can be used to play with Python
4. A built-in file editor which can be used for futher Python explorations.

The interface is available in English, French and Spanish.  Translations
are welcome!

Version 0.95 contains 36 complete lessons (English version only).
The lessons are also available as a separate download.

Version 1.0, which will aim to be a "complete" Python tutorial for
people that have never programmed before, should have approximately
50 lessons.

A few "bonus" lessons have been included.  In particular, it is
suggested that you have a look at "A Robotic Fairy Tale".


=====
In 1981, Richard Pattis introduced "Karel the Robot"
as a tool to teach computer programming.
Reeborg is a robot built on the 1981 Pattis' model...
and it is starting to show its age.
It has an oil leak, which allows us to follow its trail.
Its compass is broken; it only knows if it is
facing north or not, unlike Karel who could
determine its orientation with respect to all four cardinal points.

Pattis' Karel the Robot was named after the author Karel Capek,
who popularized the word robot in his play
Rossum's Universal Robots (RUR).
While RUR-PLE shares the basic RUR acronym,
in this case it stands for Roberge's Used Robot.
However, through the magic of Guido van Rossum's Python,
you can learn how to fix it and design a better one,
worthy of the name Rossum's Universal Robot.

====
If you've read this far... Version 0.95 contains a new feature, which has
been made available as a separate download: lightning.py
This is a cross between a Python editor and a Python interpreter.
Just enter a script in the Editor window, press "run", and you
get the result in the output window.  It handles input() and raw_input()
through dialogs.  I like it so much, that I submitted a simplified version
to the online Python cookbook.