[Edu-sig] The fate of raw_input() in Python 3000

[John Zelle]

On Monday 04 September 2006 11:03 pm, Toby Donaldson wrote:

>
> I don't care about "input". Its there now and hasn't ever been useful
> to me (eval(raw_input("...")) is a fine alternative), and, more
> importantly, has apparently not caused confusion among students.
>

Again, for similar reasons to those being mentioned, I would like to keep 
input as well as raw_input. From a pedagogical perspective, it's best to meet 
students "where they're at." Most of my students have studied algorithms and 
computation before, but in the context of mathematics. The most 
straightforward way to start them out is to take their math background and 
turn it into programs. This has the additional motivation of taking some of 
the drudgery out of the math. 

Given that starting point, it's very natural to write programs that "get a 
number from the user". That's what input allows us to do, it interprets any 
literal (more generally,  expression) provided. Forcing them to use 
eval(raw_input()) requires introducing strings as a data type, if they are to 
understand it. While strings are simple and easy to introduce early, they are 
not as intuitive to my students as numbers. They have never "manipulated" 
strings before. They've been crunching numbers since second grade. Numbers, 
then strings is the natural progression.

-- 
John M. Zelle, Ph.D.             Wartburg College
Professor of Computer Science    Waverly, IA     
john.zelle at wartburg.edu          (319) 352-8360