[Python-3000] educational aspects of Python 3000

[Giovanni Bajo]

BJörn Lindqvist <bjourne at gmail.com> wrote:

>>> The idea of a standard edu library though is a GREAT one.
>>> [...]

>> I disagree for two reasons:
>>
>> 1) Even a single line of boilerplate is too much
>> when you're trying to pare things down to the
>> bare minimum for a beginner.
>>
>> 2) It teaches a bad habit right from the
>> beginning (i.e. using 'import *'). This is the
>> wrong foot to start a beginner off on.
>
> I agree. For an absolute newbie, Pythons import semantics are way, WAY
> down the road long after variables, numbers, strings, comments,
> control statements, functions etc. A third reason is that if these
> functions are packages in a beginnerlib module, then you would have to
> type "from beginnerlib import *" each and every time you want to use
> raw_input() from the Python console.

Another solution would be to have a special "python --edu" command line options
which automatically star-import the beginnerlib before the interactive mode
starts. Or a PYTHONEDU=1 env. Or a custom site.py which patches __builtins__.

Giovanni Bajo