[Edu-sig] Python as a first language for computer sciencist

[Toby Donaldson]

Python's a good choice of language when you want to talk about
"programming as computation" to people who don't have a lot of CS or
math background. It's also good for talking about algorithm
correctness. And I use it all the time as pseudocode and one-shot
scripts.

It's not so good for talking about "programming as exploiting your
computer", i.e. when it comes time to implement an algorithm
*efficiently*.

Toby

> On Oct 17, 2005, at 12:45 PM, John Zelle wrote:
>
> > Carlos,
> >
> > I doubt that you'll get much disagreement on this list about Python
> > being an excellent first language choice. Hence, there is unlikely
> > to be
> >   much of a "discussion." I wrote a paper titled "Python as a First
> > Language" back in 1998, you can find it at:
> > http://mcsp.wartburg.edu/zelle/python
> >
>
> Carlos,
>
> John also has an excellent textbook:  Python Programming: An
> Introduction to Computer Science.  We are in our second year of using
> this book in our CS1 class and are very happy with it.  Because of
> its power and simplicity we have found that students enjoy the class
> and can do more interesting projects in their first course than they
> could with Java.
>
> For example my students are now (in week 7 of the semester) writing
> functions to enlarge images, smooth the enlarged images, and do edge
> detection on the images the image library is so simple that the
> students can really concentrate on the problem solving parts of the
> exercise.  For me these are great introductory exercises that get
> them using nested loops, simple conditionals, and functions.  I think
> the students have more fun and are more successful when they can see
> the results of their work visually.
>
> We also use Python in our CS2 course which focuses on data
> structures, and one of our colleagues is using Python in his advanced
> data structures course this year.  The great thing about using Python
> in a data structures course is that there is almost a one-to-one
> mapping from pseudocode to Python.  So the students can really see
> the how the concepts get mapped to code without all the extra
> overhead that a language like Java imposes.
>
> Of course we also teach and use Java but we don't introduce our
> students to Java until the third course in our introductory
> sequence.  The nice thing about holding off on Java until the third
> course is that the students now know enough computer science that we
> can work on bigger and more interesting problems while they are
> learning Java.  In addition I can now use Python to compare and
> contrast as I introduce new language concepts in Java.
>
>
> Brad
> --
> Brad Miller, PhD
> Assistant Professor
> Luther College
> http://www.cs.luther.edu/~bmiller
> jabber:  bnmnetp at jabber.org
>
> > Carlos Eduardo Sotelo Pinto wrote:
> >
> >> Hi people
> >> i was making a researching about python for computer
> >> science students as a first language, and it coul be
> >> good in Peruvian Universities and Colleges, may you
> >> have some experiences, or articles or ideas about it.
> >> Coul you send me to my personal email address.
> >> Also I propose to you to began a discussion about this
> >> topic.
> >>
> >> I think in my personal opinion, python could be better
> >> for students, for one so imoprtant reazon: Python is
> >> clearly and powerfull; and because of it, students
> >> just think in solve problems and learning programming,
> >> and the language could be an excellent easy learning
> >> progamming tool. Also teachers can use the power of
> >> python for making good problems for the students.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Based on my actual experience, I can say that Python _is_ a much
> > better
> > first language choice than C, C++, Java, or Visual Basic. It has
> > most of
> > the advantages of Scheme, but with a smoother transition to more
> > traditional languages. More and more CS programs are discovering
> > the joy
> > of teaching Python first. So far, I've not heard of any program that
> > tried Python and then went back to something like C++ or Java.
> >
> > Incidentally, I think Python is a marvelous tool throughout the CS
> > curriculum. It's a language that gets out of your way so that you can
> > concentrate on fundamental concepts. I even use Python in my Op
> > Systems
> > class, something I'm frequently told Python isn't good for. Not true.
> > Python is (arguably) the simplest vehicle that allows my students to
> > program directly with underlying Posix system calls. It's simpler than
> > doing systems programming in C or C++. To say nothing of trying to
> > access the OS in Java... While I would not try to write an OS in
> > Python,
> > it sure is a lot easier for teaching _about_ them. That is, I am using
> > the programming as a learning tool, not trying to teach them how to
> > program an OS.
> >
> > --John
> >
> > --
> > John M. Zelle, Ph.D.             Wartburg College
> > Professor of Computer Science    Waverly, IA
> > john.zelle at wartburg.edu          (319) 352-8360
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--
Dr. Toby Donaldson
School of Computing Science
Simon Fraser University (Surrey)