Python and Schools

[Lee Harr]

In article <boejm-khk.ln1 at news.lairds.org>, Kyler Laird wrote:
> OTOH, if we're teaching programming (I have a Scheme course
> going now.) it's a whole different ballgame.  There I feel it
> is vital to understand the basics and be able to build them
> from scratch.
> 

> So...I think you probably all understand the difference
> between Python as a tool and Python as a base language for
> teaching programming.  I'd just like to see a more deliberate
> distinction so that we don't confuse the goal of "Python and
> Schools".
> 


I have a feeling that going beyond using Python as a great tool
for getting work done with computers is probably out of scope
for most schools, but I can certainly imagine a small percentage
of students signing up for an essentially college-level comp-sci
course in their last year or two of school.

Ideally, the students would already be quite proficient at using
the tools provided by Python to get things done, and could use
those tools to prototype the lower-level details of the tools
themselves as a learning exercise.

Then they might go in to the "comparative anatomy" of learning to
do the same things with C or C++ or Java. And, of course the best
part is that they have all of the CPython and Jython source code
so they can see how experienced programmers have solved these
problems. They might even study how the implementations have
changed historically. (Open source software... wow.)