[Edu-sig] re: VPython followup

[Kirby Urner]

At 10:29 PM 1/21/2003 -0500, Arthur wrote:

>He did not see the problem then.  He does still not see the problem.  See
>below.

Fine, it's goofy, but it's not a show stopper.  People less confused
than Sherwood's apparently not-so-bright students will be able to
undo the doodoo (e.g. see my previous post).

>I AM CONVINCED IF HE SPENT 20 MINUTES OF CLASS TIME EXPLANING THE UNDERLYING
>ISSUE OF THE OLD DIV STATEMENT - NUMERIC TYPING BASIC BASICS - THE ISSUE
>WOULD HAVE BEEN TINY. HE FAILED TO PROVIDE HIS STUDENTS WITH ESSENTIAL

On the other hand, people collectively spent hours trying to persuade
you that changing the div model in Python was a good idea completely
irrespective of Sherwood's students' conceptual problems, and that didn't
seem to make much of a dent (or maybe it did finally, I dunno).  From
my point of view, you too have been manifestly confused about these
issues (which isn't to assert that I am somehow immune from confusion
myself -- we should cut ourselves some slack, as subgenius level mortals).

>INFORMATION AND THEN REPORTED THAT THEY WERE CONFUSED.  CONFUSION IS WHAT
>HAPPENS WHEN YOU AREN"T GIVEN PERTINENT AND ESSENTIAL INFORMATION - YOU GET
>CONFUSED. MAKE THEM LESS INEPT, AND  STOP TELLING US HOW INPET THEY ARE.
>
>Besides the fact that he is dead wrong about the disutils operations on
>Windows.
> >And then some further comments today...
>
>"""
>A question: What problems have there actually been with this? I have heard
>complaints that VPython isn't doing the right thing, but these complaints
>seem rather theoretical, in that I don't know in what way anyone has
>actually been significantly inconvenienced concerning the help situation.
>"""
>
>VINTAGE BRUCE, is all I can say.
>
>Art

Hey, he's allowed to not see what's the big fuss, given his narrow
perspective of trying to do some physics with students with little
background in programming.  What's cool is that VPython has grown beyond
the bounds of CMU, thanks in some part to PyGeo's dependency thereon.
Fingers crossed the new IDLE will eventually iron out the kinks with
VPython, and we can all forget about these footnotes to footnotes.

 From my narrow perspective, it's all working the way I want on my
box, so I'm ready to stop paying attention. :-D

Kirby