high school programming & python

[Cameron Laird]

In article <m2hfl2y2tt.fsf at netmeg.net>,
Les Schaffer  <godzilla at netmeg.net> wrote:
>I am tutoring a high school kid in programming this semester -- he is
>doing an independent study. i just got off the  phone with the teacher 
>of the standard high school programming course.
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>what are other peoeple's experience in this domain?
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You're in the land of the absurd.

I can hardly overstate my own affection for education
and the good teachers, or my dismay at the aggregate
atrocities committed in their name.

Myself, I have to dial my mind way out to its most
flexible to meet the inmates on their own terms, with-
out blowing up every sentence or two.  Many, many of
the best students and teachers seem utterly discon-
nected from the reality that people do these things
(write poetry, create mathematics, learn computer
languages, speak German, ...) for a reason other than
that they must in order to receive a grade.

If your aim is to sell Python, it might go *very* far
with this person that it runs everywhere, even on low-
end Macs, and with no licensing fee.

Also, be aware that they probably have zero idea that
C++ is actually useful for anything (aside from rare-
fied exercises like lexicographic sorts of names of
fruits).  It might astound them that Python does CGI.
And Python automates COM servers.  And Python manages
sysad sorts of things (making backups of class work,
...).  And Python does GUIs, of course.  And Python
can print out jobs.  Realize, you might have an entire
building full of people whose idea of advanced computer
use is cutting and pasting between Word documents.  A
few Pythonian displays of the notion of automation
could make an enormous difference in their lives.
-- 

Cameron Laird           http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
claird at NeoSoft.com      +1 281 996 8546 FAX