Python education survey

[rusi]

On Dec 21, 9:57 pm, Nathan Rice <nathan.alexander.r... at gmail.com>
wrote:
> +1 for IPython/%edit using the simplest editor that supports syntax
> highlighting and line numbers.  I have found that
> Exploring/Prototyping in the interpreter has the highest ROI of
> anything I teach people.
>
> Nathan

It seems to me that we are not distinguishing different 'scales'.
For example:
In principle one can use any unit to measure length. In practice it is
inconvenient to use kilometers when microns or angstroms are more
appropriate.

Clearly there is a need, when learning a language, to explore the
basics with a minimum of interference from the environment ie
introspection features of python with as little extra interference as
possible.

As a teacher I generally demonstrate with python-mode in emacs. I
guess IDLE, ipython etc should be equivalent.  But then someone in the
class comes with a 'question' of this sort:

We have this project in eclipse+python.
But the path is not being searched properly.
etc

Now for me eclipse is more of pizazz on the outside and nightmare on
the inside. [Or maybe its just that I am particularly bad at solving
these kinds of problems]. Nevertheless this scale or granularity of
work is also important in python education and is sorely
underrepresented.

Here are some of my earlier attempts to canvass for this orientation:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2011-May/1271749.html

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2011-November/1283634.html