[Edu-sig] Python accessibility

[Kirby Urner]

Another longer range concept would be to have a magazine 
called 'Python in Education' or something, which would 
include advertising.  There could be a monthly CD you 
subscribe to.  Authors would get paid for accepted 
articles and the code would go to the CD, which would
be optional.  Or some other configuration along these
lines.  There'd be a website with selected articles, but
I'm actually thinking of something printed.  With any 
new subscription including the optional CD, you'd mail
out one of these "starter disks" with Python thereon.

A challenge is the need for multiple platform support.
A lot of schools use iMacs (my own brief experience with 
the iMac Python is that version of IDLE doesn't feature 
color-coding of key words).  Some use RedHat RPMs, but 
Debian, for example, has an alternative distro system.  
Then you've got the Windows binaries.  What most beginners 
would find oppressive, beyond getting a download off the 
net, is compiling source code.  The idea is to provide 
unzip-and-run type install files.

In my view, most 'Python in Education' articles would 
presume students were operating in IDLE.  That's sort 
of "home base" for most presentations.  Then you might
have special features showing Python running in an
X-term window or in Pythonwin, articles about programming
the Gnome GUI with Python -- other platform-specific 
stuff.  Each article could be labeled in the sidebar is
to which versions of Python, and which OSes, were relevant
to the article's contents.

Kirby