[Python-3000] educational aspects of Python 3000

[Antoine Pitrou]

Le lundi 11 septembre 2006 à 11:22 -0700, Michael Chermside a écrit :
> The idea of a standard edu library though is a GREAT one. That would
> provide a standard place for things like raw_input() (with a better
> name) as well as lots of other "helper functions" useful to beginners
> and/or students -- and all it would cost is a single line of boilerplate
> at the top of each program ("from beginnerlib import *" or something
> like that).

There is a risk with beginner-specific library: it's the same problem as
with user interfaces which have  "simple" and "advanced" modes. Often
the "simple" mode becomes an excuse for lazy developers to turn the
"advanced" mode into a painful mess (under the flawed pretext that
advanced users can suffer the pain anyway).

And if the helper functions are genuinely useful, why would they be only
for beginners and students?

IMHO, it would be better to label the module "scripting" rather than
"beginnerlib" (and why append "lib" at the end of module names
anyway? :-)).
It might even contain stuff such as encoding guessing.

>>> from scripting import raw_input, autotextfile

Regards

Antoine.