[Visualpython-users] New Windows VPython

[Arthur Siegel]

>  Bruce writes - 
 
> I will attempt to say nothing more about any of this.

Which I guess gives me the last word.

No I don't have any *proof* that the issue in the classroom
is not as you analyze.  It does seem that you somehow *knew* 
it was going to be *the* issue, and that the classroom experience
you report is only confirming your own foresight.

I was a Python and programming  beginner not very 
long ago, so *I* know  perhaps better than
you what were the significant issues and what
were the minor issues in getting up to speed.

Do you have a basis to tell me that my own real lived 
experience was not lived, not accurately reported,
or that besides being the crankiest of bastards, I 
am somehow outside the norm.

You refuse to address, among other things, the fact that VPython
is distributed with Numeric, and that you *cannot* expect your
students to use it without disaster if they are not introduced
to its typing and numerical coercian rules -  a discussion in
which the old div operator behavior is given context. From there
on - one would think - its their *job* to keep it straight, and 
simply a few of the many of the things I expect you would 
expect them to keep straight in the course of a course.

For the record:

>From my perspective the issue here is not the div operator 
change, and , never has been.  It is about science, about evidence 
and the reporting of evidence, and  about common sense.

Art