Teaching python (programming) to children

[DeepBlue]

"Hung Jung Lu" <hungjunglu at yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:8ef9bea6.0111050832.4474d66a at posting.google.com...
> Python seems very friendly, at first sight. But unless you really
> understand the dictionary and namespace (and name binding) mechanisms
> behind it, you'll run into surprises in no time. And at that moment,
> there is simply no way that it could be explained in easy terms to
> beginners, when they don't understand things like pointers,
> references, memory stack and heap, hash tables.
>
You run into surprises in every field.  What you are running into is not the
inherent difficulty in grasping such concepts, but the teaching methodology.
Also you are underestimating students.
Teaching methodology is what counts.  I have seen some smart people with
grasp of certain 'difficult' concepts but are such failed instructors who
made a mess in the way they explain things.  What you need is the equivalent
of John Archibald Wheeler and Richard Feynman in Physics.  Believe me:  if
someone can explain Space Time Physics (Wheeler) and Quantum Electrodynamics
(Feynman) in an everyday language that everyone can actually follow and
understand; you are going to find talented people who can explain name
spaces to beginners.  After all, on a 'diffiiculty' ladder, what is a name
space concept to the concept of a Riemann non-Euclidean Geometry or a 4D
Minkowskian Space Time vector!
DeepBlue