[Python-Dev] Language Summit Follow-Up

[Chris Barker]

On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 4:43 AM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

> For that last point, my interest is as much educational as it is in
> easing the transition from Python 2. The parentheses in "print('Hello
> world!')" mean introducing the idea of function calls early to explain
> how it works, while being able to omit them makes it easier to gloss
> over the distinction between statements and function calls initially
> and then cover it later after the basics of flow control have been
> nailed down.
>

I've been doing a lot of intro-to-python teaching lately (py2 so far...),
and I understand this desire. IN fact, a lot of notes point to the fact
that python's "hello world" is simply : print "hello world", rather than
what is required in some languages to do something that simple.

However, I also believe that when teaching it's better to introduce the
"right way" to do something up front, rather than a "beginners' way", then
later say, well, you really SHOULD do it this other way... So if we want
our students to use print as a function, we might a well start them off
that way. Saying that their very first easy program is:

print("hello world")

is fine -- they don't have to know or understand what a function call is --
they simply copy the syntax. And frankly, we get to simple function calls,
VERY early in the program -- you can't really do anything without them...

In fact, in my latest class, we've made an effort to introduce
forward-thinking up front, even before we explain quite what it all means:

use u"a string" to make a string

you write a class like:

class C(object):
   ...

before we talk about subclassing, or what "object" is...

just my $0.02

-Chris












> Cheers,
> Nick.
>
> --
> Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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