[Edu-sig] Version 0.2.03 of PataPata released (adds Jython/Swing support)

[Arthur]

Paul D. Fernhout wrote:

> 
>I quote it because it reminds me of your comments on list sometimes. :-)
>And this is not to disagree with your points on using Python as-it-is for 
>education -- in the sense that you remain absolutely correct that Python 
>is a great system and people can learn a lot using it just the way it is 
>in the manner it was primarily intended (as something better than C or 
>shell scripting for those who already know C syntax and shell scripting).
>
I think that unnecessarily narrowly defines its intentions.  I knew (and 
know) no C, and knew a little shell scripting only from the days before 
a GUI interface to the Net.

I have fought the "Python is Easy" meme relentlessly - thinking it sure 
to establish the conditions for failure for those approaching it with 
that expectation.  Nonetheless I am world famous ;) for being an old dog 
having learned a substantial new trick - programming - via Python.  I 
think there are reasons I have been successful with Python where I would 
not have been with Smalltalk or Squeak or this or that.  Some of those 
reasons are probably peculiar to my own sensibilities, and some are not 
- they are in the design of the language.  I like the word "naivety" in 
this context - knowing we are talking about a quite  intentional 
naivety. It is related to "easy", but it is different from it.  You seem 
in your discussion to be immune to any appreciation of this aspect of 
Python. But I think that anyone trained in the Kay constructivist school 
would tend to be  For all the soothing talk about empowerment, there are 
the geniuses and the other.  We - the geniuses - need a language 
designed to provoke the other  It's taste on the palate is not the concern 

Here, it is different .

So I see no great productive energy resulting from a collaboration. We 
talk about practicality over purity, not blue panes and pink planes.

People *make their livings* doing Python.  Without grant funding. I 
would never had been interested in it were it otherwise.

Art