[Edu-sig] re: New game in town

[Martijn Faassen]

Arthur Siegel wrote:
> Stephen R. Figgins writes:
> 
> >This just gave me an idea.  How about a database of programming tools
> >and programs divided into categories and rated by complexity.
> 
> >This way learners could find code that matched their interests and
> >capabilities.  They could tear it apart, study it, put it back
> >together, play with it, maybe even contribute to it.
> 
> Sort of a Python Gamelan. Ambitious, would be great - but I don't
> think the Python communioty is up to it.
> 
> As an interested and relatively long-time observer of the scene, frankly I'm
> totalling confused at what's happening.
> 
> The announcement list, I thought a key life-blood of the Python world - who
> is doing
> what and willing to share it - has been essentially dead for some time and
> nobody seems to notice
> or care.

I think there are some technical problems with comp.lang.python.announce,
I'm not sure. It just seems to randomly show up and go away again
for people. I've never been able to find it when I looked for it.

But, we have something else you may not be aware of: the Vaults of
Parnassus. http://www.vex.net/parnassus

Click 'latest' for at least a nice list of recent Python software 
(and also info) announcements. It's a great resource.

Perhaps this could also be extended to list 'hackability' value; 
how easy it is considered to change it, how much such activities are
supported and invited by the original creators, etc. We could talk to
Tim Middleton (the guy who does the Vaults) if anyone has good ideas 
about this.

> Nothing put forward on this list has been given any serious attention by the
> folks who matter.

Perhaps the expectations are too high? Who are the folks who matter?
What could these people do to help?

I myself am currently teaching almost all my coworkers Python (and then on
to Zope); it's about 8 people. I'm creating at least a little bit of course
material for that, which anyone is welcome to. I've just started, though!
 
[snip] 
> But if Alice is going to be put forward as a
> "certified" and high-profile piece of Python
> educational software I would like to better understand the criteria for
> inclusion.

I didn't think Alice was being held forward as anything like a cool
piece of Python software with a GUI that's aimed at beginners. But I thought
Alice's aim wasn't CP4E, it was letting people play with 3d environments. 

I think the main thrust of CP4E development is currently IDLE -- the idea
is that there should be a tool that's easy enough for beginners to
use (but yet also powerful) to write Python code. You need that kind of
infrastructure in place if you want people to learn to work with programming
Python applications, I think.

I suppose I may be confused; this forum is about teaching Python and
programming in general to people, isn't it? Or is it about educational
software written in Python? I am not sure if the latter belongs on the
list, except that the process of understanding and extending such
software may help people understand programming concepts. So I'm not
entirely sure what you're talking about. I haven't looked at these
packages yet. 

Perhaps the Edu-SIG needs refocussing though -- currently it's unclear
in which direction we're moving, I think. There are various directions:

* create non-software course materials

* make it easier to program in Python (IDLE, some simple libraries, perhaps?)

* make software that's fun to extend and hack on, so students learn to
program by doing it.

The IDLE track is covered by idle-dev, though it could probably use more
feedback from educational people. As far as software goes we could then
look at libraries and hackable programs. Perhaps we can decide on
developing a few, though usually in the open source world it's just
that there is one steady developer (or a core group) that goes on
developing no matter what, and then eventually a larger group of
users/developers coalesces around that when what's developed becomes
more usable.

And there it'd be nice if there was more discussion on course materials,
and the best ways to approach teaching Python. I'll post more about my
experiences some other day.

Regards,

Martijn