Teaching Python

[Hank Fay]

In addition, for your advanced class you could take a look at Leo, part of
the Literate programming effort.  Think of a outliner, where your code
resides under the nodes of the tree.  For the data-oriented aspect of the
application, you can put the data-oriented Use Cases as the tree, and put
the code that implements each use case right there.  Leo does much more, but
it's a tool that will open  your students' minds, and probably spoil them
for the future. <s>

Hank Fay

-- 

"Mediocre Person" <mediocre_person at hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:504ced20c24ba170fd83d409302113ae at news.teranews.com...
> Leif K-Brooks wrote:
> > Mediocre Person wrote:
> >
> >> So, what pitfalls should I look out for in introducing Python to
> >> students who have had a year of Visual BASIC?
>
> >
> > If at all possible, I would recommend changing the Visual Basic class to
> >  RealBASIC (http://realbasic.com/). It's not perfect, but it has proper
> > OO support, and would make the transition to Python much easier. Even
> > better would be teaching basic Python to the VB class and more advanced
> > Python to the 12th graders;
> Using Python for the early class is not out of the question--but I'd
> want to find an environment that mimics (or improves upon) VB's
> brilliantly (forgive me) easy model of designing the gui and then
> programming responses to events. Someone mentioned SPE, which I haven't
> seen in action yet.
>
> Python's biggest strength is allowing
> > beginners to use simple OO or even procedural techniques without ever
> > noticing the advanced stuff like list comprehensions and metaclasses.