[Python-ideas] Better error messages [was: (no subject)]

[Chris Angelico]

On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 12:40 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull
<turnbull.stephen.fw at u.tsukuba.ac.jp> wrote:
> That's not exactly what he said.  High school teachers are likely to
> be the product of education schools, and may be highly skilled in
> building PowerPoint presentations, and have some experience in
> programming, but not as a professional.  So I can easily imagine a
> teacher responsible for several classes of 40 students for 2 hour-long
> sessions a week per class, and not being able to "interpret at a
> glance" many error messages produced by the Python interpreter.  This
> is basically the "aim for 90%" approach you describe, and he admits
> that's the best we can do.

Okay, then I misinterpreted. Seems we are indeed in agreement. Sounds good!

>  > IMO the right way to teach computer programming is for it to be the
>  > day job for people who do all their programming in open source and/or
>  > personal projects.  There are plenty of people competent enough to
>  > teach programming and would benefit from a day job.
>
> I don't know where you live, but in both of my countries there is a
> teacher's union to ensure that nobody without an Ed degree gets near a
> classroom.  More precisely, volunteers under the supervision of
> somebody with professional teaching credentials, yes, day job, not in
> this century.  And "teaching credentials" == degree from a state-
> certified 4-year Ed program, not something you can get at a community
> college in an adult ed program.

Sadly, that's probably true here in Australia too, but I don't know
for sure. I have no specific qualifications, but I teach online; it's
high time the unions got broken IMO... but that's outside the scope of
this. If it takes a credentialed teacher to get a job in a school, so
be it - but at least make sure it's someone who knows how to interpret
the error messages, so that any student who runs into trouble can ask
the prof.

ChrisA