David & Massimo,
Our local community college will begin offering Python courses this
Fall. As is common with community colleges there is a lot of 'training'
for particular tools and languages to meet immediate needs of local
employers. As a representative of the big, research university in town
on the community college's advisory board I was pleased to see interest
both at the college and with employers. I can put you in contact with
them, if you are interested (contact me directly at [EMAIL PROTECTED]).
In our department we began using Python in our CS1 course (first
programming course for majors) last Fall with the CS2 course still
taught in C++. I've surveyed and collected data on whether there is a
difference in the CS2 experience -- this spring was the first CS2
offering with students who began with Python. The course just finished
so I expect to take a while to sort through the data. I can share it
with anyone who is interested. It offers interesting possibilities
since some students had Python first while others had something else
(C++ and Java mostly). At this point, the instructor of the CS2 course
is confident that at the very least the Python students are no worse.
-rich
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Massimo Di Pierro wrote:
Hi David,
I teach at DePaul university where we now use Python in multiple
classes. The way we got it in was not by proposing Python in
substitution to Java or C++. I tried it and that failed for the same
reasons you mention. I got it in by starting to use Python in
algorithms classes instead of pseudo code (and I did not permission to
do it). Python also works great in web development courses (we have a
course on web frameworks and we use web2py) and networking courses.
Personally I believe that typical intro programming courses are
obsolete because the target population has changed. When our students
come in, although they cannot program, they already understand the
concept of network, data transfer, input/output, files. I think it is
easier to teach programming by teaching how to manipulate these high
level structures and then work your way down to loops and conditionals
that to do it the opposite way, the way we used to do it.
Massimo
On May 5, 2008, at 7:24 PM, David MacQuigg wrote:
I talked with the CIS department chairman and one of the faculty
about the possibility of teaching Python at our community college,
and they weren't interested. (Oh No, not another language ... )
Also, the lack of declarations was a show-stopper.
I encountered this same objection from one of the faculty at U of A,
where I just gave a lecture. It doesn't seem to help when I say: In
four years of using Python, I can remember only one time when I had a
subtle error from mistyping a variable name that took an hour to
track down. I'll gladly trade that hour for the dozens I've saved
not having to read and write all these declarations.
I've added this to my QnA page at
http://ece.arizona.edu/~edatools/ece175/Lecture/QnA.txt
<http://ece.arizona.edu/%7Eedatools/ece175/Lecture/QnA.txt>
'''
Q2: Without variables declarations, isn't there a problem with mistyped
variable names leading to subtle errors?
A2: It can happen, but the subtle errors are rather rare. Usually
you will
get an immediate and clear message like:
Traceback (most recent call last):
- - -
NameError: name 'z' is not defined
where 'z' is the name you intended to type. The subtle error can
occur if z
is already defined, and you intended to re-define it.
If you worry about errors like this, you can scan your program with a
utility like pychecker, and it will detect any variables that are defined
but never used.
'''
Still, I wonder if there isn't a better way to handle this objection
to Python. I'm thinking of a configuration option in IDLE, something
that will either:
1) Run a subset of pychecker tests every time you hit the Run button, or
2) Insist on declarations in a comment at the start of every function
(just the names, not data types). Any name that isn't already
declared gets immediately painted red.
I would use #1 if it was no time penalty. #2 seems like "training
wheels" to me, but I would expect some folks who are religious about
declarations might at least find it re-assuring.
-- Dave
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