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

[Joshua Zucker]

On 9/13/06, Arthur <ajsiegel at optonline.net> wrote:
> As it happens, on a *read* basis, about the first thing one can expect
> to encounter and need to explain  (maybe after the doc string) is the
> "import" statement.  To me this feels exactly right.  OTOH, a recent
> post on the Python3000 list - discussing the fate of raw_input() -
> re-iterates the position that an understanding of the import statement
> is something that belongs way, way down the road - in a way that was
> much to sure of itself, for my taste.

I had the impression that people were talking about a week or two, not
"way, way down the road".  And of course there are many possible
pedagogical approaches.  The question about the fate of raw_input(),
to me and in the context of this email list (rather than to the rest
of you, or to the people actually involved in making the 3000 spec),
is about whether we want to shut off some of those possible
pedagogical avenues and render obsolete a lot of old curricula.

One of the things I like best about Python is that there are a lot of
ways to think in it -- you can think like a C programmer or an
OOP-type or a functional programmer or even maybe like a BASIC
programmer, and you can still write working code.  I do like having
that big range of possibilities in how to teach.

But maybe some of those possibilities are really obsolete, and
raw_input() is equally obsolete.  Why not learn about functions, or
about import, on day 1 anyway?  Either way, raw_input() becomes
unnecessary.

--Joshua Zucker