[Edu-sig] Python for CS101

[Dan Crosta]

First of all, I'm glad to see that some places are beginning to pick up 
Python as an introductory language, Doug. Here at Swarthmore, as you may 
know, the department just revamped the intro course layout to teach Java 
from the get-go, which I tried as much as an undergrad could, to prevent 
for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I find its syntax too too 
picky, particularly with the advent of generics. But that's water under 
the bridge, I guess.

As a second note, I don't consider Python a language suitable only for 
lower-level classes. I am currently writing a ray-tracer for my Advanced 
Graphics seminar completely in Python, and I've found that development 
goes a whole hell of a lot quicker than in C++, which my partner and I 
wrote our modeling/rendering enginge in last semester. I'm also working 
on a few personal projects (a replacement for pine/mutt in the style of 
gmail, among others) in Python.

In fact, the only areas I think Python is *not* suitable are low-level 
architecture-dependent programming. Our architecture class does 
CPU/memory stress testing using C, and our operating systems classes 
should also probably use it. I guess I feel that only in places where 
the architecture *is* the point of the project should a low-level 
language be used; in all other situations, the goal of the class ought 
to be to study the algorithms and focus on goals, instead of nitpicky 
details.

I guess that didn't directly address any of your questions -- just my 
thoughts on the matter.

dsc