[Python-ideas] Framework for Python for CS101

[Rustom Mody]

On Tuesday, May 26, 2015 at 7:58:31 AM UTC+5:30, Chris Barker wrote:
>
>
> But it sounds to me like you aren't so much simplifying the language as 
> hiding parts of it, which I'm not sure buys you much.
>

Learners learn sequentially -- probably a more fundamental law than 
'computer compute sequentially'.
If there are significant tracts of the language that are out of one's 
(current) understanding and not arising to confuse the noob, thats ok.
But when they arise and the learner does not have the intellectual 
equipment to deal with that it just slows down learning.

Take the print statment/function.

It would be rather ridiculous to remove the print from a realistic language.
However if you've taught enough beginners you'd know how hard it is to get 
beginners to write
... return <something>
as against
... print (<something>)

And so in an early teachpack, I'd disable the print statement.

This of course means that at that level the student is bound to trying out 
python at the interactive interpreter.
Some people think that that renders the language ridiculously impotent.
My experience suggests that if this guide-rail were available, beginners 
would get key beginner-stuff eg
- writing structured code
- defining, passing, using, visualizing suitable data structures
much faster.

So...

FOR THE BEGINNER: "cutting out" == "simplifying"
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