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

[kirby urner]

On 8/9/06, Arthur <ajsiegel at optonline.net> wrote:
> 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.

Yes, inadequately mirrors the actual demographics.

When Python first came out, maybe C programmers were the primary
target, but a lot of us were used to an interactive shell environment
from xBase (i.e. dBase II, III, IV, V, Clipper, FoxPro).

So when MSFT purchased FoxPro to compete with Borland (FoxPro for
Windows versus Borland's dBase V), and started going OO, that pushed a
huge cadre into the OO paradigm'd who'd hardly even heard of
Smalltalk, let alone coded in it.

What was cool about FoxPro is it didn't go the VB route and just let
programmers use precoded objects from libraries (the OCX, later
ActiveX model).  VBers were kept blissfully igorant of OO at the level
of actually defining classes (with VB .NET, that's all changed).

The FoxPro development team (Ken Levy etc.), on the other hand,
injected a full OO framework into xBase, including with Visual Tools
of the type Paul here exults about in commercial grade Smalltalk
(which I've dabble with too, in trial versions).  Like VIsual Studio,
but earlier, and in some ways better (actually, I find Intellisense
frustrating at times -- but I know there's a way to turn it off).

Regarding Smalltalk, I'd have never given it a look, were it not for
Hal Hildebrand, most probably (a very special case history, having to
do with needing to press some cybernetic advantages inherent in the
Fuller documents cache aka chronofile).

Nor was I anything more than a C hobbiest, having dabbled in Turbo C
and Turbo Pascal (I know more of both by this time, thanks to cracking
a lot of Linux books, and thanks to Bernie in NZ respectively).

I'm not the only person making a living as an xBase coder, who
discovered Python.  VFPers don't find Python unfamiliar.  It's like
*easy* -- in a way Arthur might allow (because we're already coders,
and so already know that "programming is hard" -- "hard fun" as the
Papertists say).

There's a whole database building framework, called Dabo, congenial
for xBasers looking to transfer their skills (the trajectory of the
project's founders), http://dabodev.com/

In my case, since I already have VFP skills, I used Python to branch
out into new areas:  3D computer graphics (studies started in VFP);
object databases (Zope/Plone and/or Patrick O'Brien's wild and open
thing http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/o/O=Brien:Patrick.html
).

It's mostly the computer graphics stuff I write about on edu-sig, but
filling in with more lexically oriented lesson plans, for building
skills up to that level (3D ain't the easiest easy thing, solutions in
4D either).

> 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 .

Yeah, because after years of OO in commerce and industry, it's not
this big elitist thing any more to have mastery of that jargon.
Smalltalkers were impressive, in their day and age, to the great
unwashed.  But no longer.  In and of itself, just knowing OO is not a
mark of anything special.  Knowing a dead language implementation of
the paradigm is also not a turn on for young people.

I'm guessing that's parly why Kusasa put Python *after* Squeakland,
because it's easier to dive into the guts of Python (in a system
language) than into the guts of Squeak (a dead language ville), even
though both reveal source to several basement levels/degrees.

The motivation to learn the C family (C/C++/C#) is still high, Java
too.  If you're doing "pull curriculum" (not "push"), you need a draw,
a motive.

Python is a draw to older, more mature adults, who know Smalltalk has
no future except as a dead language (something Kay knows, so all is
harmonious at the top level).

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

Collaboration between whom?

The fact is, "asynchronous updating of worlds" immersion software is
where the big gamers are going.  Will we have Python bindings or no?
Under the hood, there's a lot of OO happening.  What's the future for
Twisted?  For Zope?

Actually, I think you're right:  the Smalltalk community is mostly
silent on any issues we care about.  The educationists among them
(Squeak community) has allies and friends, but the commercial sector
Smalltalkers have no skills that we need.

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

People make a living in Smalltalk too (and in FORTRAN, COBOL...).

Anyway, I'm a lot in agreement with many of your points.  That happens too.

Kirby