[Edu-sig] a non-rhetorical question

[Michael Tobis]

I am not totally sold on hackety; not having had access to MS Windows
of late I haven't played with it.

I am saying that the whole business is great fun if approached right,
and there at least hackety has much to teach us.

I have had great success starting with ascii art, drawing boxes and
triangles out of blanks and punctuation characters. By the time the
kite figure is drawn, the utility of input() is obvious. I think you
and Guzdial (and Andy Harrington who uses your book) are right to
proceed to graphics fairly quickly. Guzdial and hackety also stress
music.

It's necessary to demonstrate the power and joy of the tool to get
people interested.

As a Python loyalist I see Python instruction as a way to strengthen
the language and the community, but I'm getting the impression that
the community won't be able to manage it.

I agree in the long run that which language wins is relatively
unimportant compared to the benefit of widespread programming
competence, from the point of view of society or the individual
student.

>From the point of view of the specific language community it's another
matter. Python has enough momentum in the areas where I work that I
have no hesitation in sticking to it, but that being the case, I would
rather that Ruby not be the language of the future.

mt