Kirby Urner wrote: > Arthur: >> For the largest majority of students - it seems clear to me - asking them >> to learn to program, in Python or any other language for that matter, >> would be the single *hardest* thing they have been asked to do in their >> academic careers.
You (Arthur) should read Djistra's "On the Crulety of Teaching Computer Programming" (or is that Computer Science?) -- Communications of the ACM, I'm not quite sure when (I'd guess within the last five years). He essentially agrees with you as to a computer science curriculum for undergraduate majors. > ... > def f(x): > return x*x > points = [(x, f(x)) for x in range(-10,11)] > print points > plot(points) > > Is that much harder than ordinary math? Using Python as an interactive > workspace. > Programming to learn. A friend that I've helped learn to program has said that learning to program improved his ability to think about complicated things. Now this effect is an old math effect; I expect that it is much about how to think rigorously. The nicest thing about programming is that the rigor is enforced for a comprehensible reason: the machine follows your orders. Enough people get frustrated at math simply because it is far from obvious when you have enough rigor and when you don't. Math, to them, seems like a game with a few rules missing. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
