Thanks, Kirby, for cluing me in that I hadn't posted it to the list. --Joshua
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Joshua Zucker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sep 8, 2006 2:07 PM Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] The fate of raw_input() in Python 3000 To: kirby urner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> On 9/8/06, kirby urner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I think the model today is "a person writing code for him or herself" > i.e. "self as client" -- at least in an early context. We're not > guiding the unknowing through a menu tree. We're computer literate, > fluent. > > Why would we ask ourselves for raw_input, when it's much easier to > just pass arguments to functions? As someone who has taught a lot of functional programming (Scheme), I have a lot of sympathy for this argument. It wouldn't occur to me to teach raw_input or its equivalent anywhere early in the course, because designing functions is what it's all about! But the Scheme course I taught also came with a lot of teachpacks (read: modules to import) that did things like provide an interactive session with your function (prompting, like raw_input but with more error handling built in, or GUI). Without those, I might have been tempted to teach those input functions after all. The way my thinking is headed is toward event-driven programming (prompted both by some Java books, for which I apologize, and by some good new introductory Scheme lessons). So I'd rather see some dynamic thing, controlled by mouse clicks or key presses, as a relatively "low-level" input function, instead of just raw_input(). But by then I'd expect them to be comfortable with import anyway. My feeling in favor of keeping raw_input() is that it gives one more good choice for beginners. One of the things I enjoy most about Python is that whether I'm thinking like a Fortran programmer, a C programmer, or a Scheme programmer, I still find myself for the most part able to translate my thinking into reasonably good-looking code. Sometimes raw_input() makes me feel like I'm thinking like a BASIC programmer, but that has its place too, no? My feeling against keeping raw_input() is that we don't want them thinking that way anyway, and if someone really likes it, they should just make their own module and import it, which is a good beginner lesson. This latest from Kirby, reminding us that instead of interactive input we could just define a function and give the input that way, makes me lean even more toward the "against" camp. It'd be better education without it. --Joshua Zucker _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
