Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language

[Chris Angelico]

On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 7:22 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
>> Well, okay. In C you can't have Foo.foo().
>
> Hah, well according to Paul Smith's example code you can. So either:
>
>
> - it's possible to be an experienced C programmer and still have
> fundamental gaps in your knowledge about basic concepts like dotted
> function calls;
>
> - or Paul's sample code was not what he claimed it to be;
>
> - or maybe the whole thing is undefined and we're all right! C both does
> and doesn't allow Foo.foo() function calls, *sometimes at the same time*.

- or it's possible to be an experienced C and C++ programmer and have
your mind just blank out about which things you can do in C and which
were added in C++, especially when you've been up all night and are
wired on energy drinks.

Mea culpa. My brain looked at that and thought it was a member
function, which is a C++ feature, and forgot that it could be a
straight-up function pointer, which is a C feature. Paul's correct,
I'm wrong.

ChrisA