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

[Chris Barker]

On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 6:35 PM, Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:

>  I have no specific qualifications, but I teach online;


nor do I, and I teach for a continuing ed program -- not in high school.

But anyway, regardless of official qualifications, good programmers are not
neccesray good teachers of programming. At all.

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.
>

Exactly -- you can't be credentialed to teach Biology, or French, or....
without knowing the subject. That may not yet be true for computer science,
as it is still "new" in high school curriculum, but it's still not Python's
job to overcome that.

All the being said -- I don't think we should try to tailor error messages
specifically for newbies in the core interpreter, and the error messages
have gotten a lot better with py3, but they could still use some
improvement -- I would say that suggestions are welcome.

And if they can be made (more) machine readable, so that an beginners IDE
would enhance them, that would be great.

-CHB


-- 

Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
Oceanographer

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