Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language

[Larry Martell]

On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 9:16 PM, Denis McMahon <denismfmcmahon at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Dec 2013 20:35:47 -0500, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 10 Dec 2013 18:25:48 +1300, Gregory Ewing
>> <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> declaimed the following:
>
>>>That's like saying that when teaching woodwork we shouldn't let people
>>>use hammers, we should make them use rocks to bang nails in, because it
>>>will make them better carpenters in the long run.
>
>>       NAILS????
>>       Nails were verboten in my high school wood working class...
>>       We used dowels and glue; chisels to carve dove-tails; etc.
>
> We were allowed to use screws, but they had to be brass, not steel, we
> had to drill appropriate clearance and pilot holes, and countersink where
> appropriate.

Ohhhh we used to DREAM of using screws! We were given steel shafts and
had to tap the threads into them with our teeth.