> -----Original Message----- > Behalf Of Bob Noonan > The one place where Python is clearly deficient IMHO is in GUI programming.
While this might be true, I do not feel it is a problem. The problem is that GUI programming is given significant coverage in most mainstream introductory CS textbooks. Open an arbitrary Java-based textbook and you are likely to face GUIs from almost the beginning. Sample programs and exercises often come with GUI shells that obscure their essential non-GUI parts. I find the dominance of GUIs in java-based introductory books troublesome. GUI programming is relatively complex. To understand it, one needs to understand event handling. I have hard time explaining event handling to beginners and see that beginners have hard time understanding it. While GUI programming is complex from beginner's perspective, it does not offer many interesting algorithmic problems. I believe that we humans are really good at linear communication. Most animals see and understand pictures. We humans have the exclusive capability of speaking and hearing *linear sequences* of sounds, while animals are not particularly good at that. We are also good in reading and writing sequences of characters while no known animals can do that. Some folks say that a picture can easily show what a thousand words cannot. Well, there is nothing you cannot express with words, but there are many things that you cannot express, at least not easily, with pictures. You do not need to try translating Shakespeare into pictures to see how hard that would be, just try writing technical emails in this list using pictures. My point is that GUI should not be overweighed in intro CS courses. GUIs have some place, but certainly not central place in such courses. Python's interactive mode, without GUIs, is great way to teach introductory level programming. Therefore, a possible Python deficiency in the GUI area should not be considered a problem at all. I apologize for this non-technical message. I was tempted to write it because I have struggled way too much teaching too much GUI programming in intro level CS courses. Atanas Atanas Radenski mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.chapman.edu/~radenski/ _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
