[Edu-sig] Editors/IDEs for teaching

Nicholas H.Tollervey ntoll at ntoll.org
Tue Jul 3 11:35:55 EDT 2018


On 03/07/18 16:30, Andre Roberge wrote:
> My only question about suitability for CS 101 type of audience is that 
> will it be perceived (by those "serious" CS students) more as a toy, 
> given its friendly interface, than a "professional" tool suitable for 
> them - such as Wing 101, or PyCharm Edu.     (Don't take me wrong: I 
> really think it would be very suitable - I'm just wondering about the 
> students' impression.)

This is a really *great* point, but it comes with an answer! If you have 
enough knowledge to ask "Why doesn't Mu do X?" then you shouldn't be 
using Mu. ;-) It's time to graduate to a "professional" editor.

Mu concentrates very hard on making that gap between sitting still and 
walking (in code terms) as easy to navigate as possible. It's the editor 
equivalent of toddling. ;-)

So, for those CS101 students who already know Emacs, Atom or whatever, 
then Mu is definitely *not* for them, they should use what they're 
comfortable using.

If you're interested I talk about this in my presentation from PyCon 2018:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5IAf5vGGSk

Happy to answer any questions, and as always feedback is most welcome.

N.


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