[Idle-dev] IDLE in UK Schools

[Bruce Sherwood]

In my previous note I tried to document the rather extensive past and
current use of IDLE in higher education. For the near future, those of us
involved in the development and use of VPython see as the best way forward
two environments, the GlowScript environment (which requires no software
installation), and the use of John Coady's ivisual module, running Python
in an IPython server with output in IPython notebooks, using the GlowScript
WebGL libraries, typically in the context of a full distribution such as
Anaconda.

It is difficult to continue development of the original "classic" VPython,
because the core is written C++ with the use of the Boost libraries, which
has meant that only four people since its creation in 2000 have ever made
significant contributions to the code. It uses antiquated CPU-based OpenGL
graphics instead of the GPU. Installation can be problematic in some
environments.

There are some things that need to be done to make ivisual fully ready for
prime time, but they look doable. The API isn't quite right, execution is
slow because the module is pure Python, and the notebook environment needs
some customization to make it usable by novices. We think that Cython can
give us the execution speed we need, and Coady has already done some
experimentation with this; it will be a big win to have the code in Python
rather than C++. He has also done some preliminary experimentation with
customizing the notebook. Several of us expect to help out on this.

This means that at some point in the not distant future IDLE will cease to
be important for our purposes, but I did want to document how important it
has been.

Incidentally, one of the important aspects of the GlowScript environment is
that it is not uncommon, especially in high schools and community colleges,
for IT departments to refuse to install Python "because open source
software is very dangerous." Recently Chabay and I ran a VPython workshop
where for the first time we used GlowScript, which meant that participants
didn't have to install any software on their laptops. In the workshop was a
high school physics teacher who brought a school Chromebook and expressed
delight that he could write and run VPython programs on it, which gave him
the only way he and his students could use Python and VPython.

Bruce
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