[Edu-sig] What version of Python to teach ....

[kirby urner]

Those of use teaching Python in a ~CS vein (= not CS i.e. not teaching
computer scientists), have the advantage of not needing reams of
source code, only minor scaffolding of a rather trivial nature,
wrapping whatever libraries.  We're not application developers (yet).
That fork comes later.

So yeah, 2.x for the VPython work, still necessary (stickworks etc.).
But then it's easy to migrate simple generators such as for figurate
numbers, Fibonaaci's and Pascal's, and the new protocols are better
implemented and thought out.  As many have discovered, it's easier to
go 3-to-2 than 2-to-3 in many cases.

Paying lots of attention to types is the bread and butter of
mathematics, an extensible type system.  So algebra students like
doing nothing better then setting several iterators going on the same
iterable, per Steve Holden's workshop at Python this spring.

That range returns an obscure range type object is cool, gives us
something to talk about.

Namespaces versus code objects is another interesting discussion.

Something like Pippy (not saying Pippy itself) is what I work with, in
terms of snippets.  Very Crunchy in flavor.

My talk for OS Bridge is now officially approved:

http://opensourcebridge.org/proposals/34

(the leadership for this one is Gen W, where W stands for tWitter --
eerie to see a whole conference organized with that)

Preview of slides in progress for an algebra lecture on Tuesday:

http://www.4dsolutions.net/presentations/gis_workshop_2009.pdf  (still
expanding as I get feedback from the leadership)

Kirby

PS:  took resume off line because of PSF membership -- it's no longer
current.  I'll upload another one in awhile.