Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language

[Gregory Ewing]

Wolfgang Keller wrote:
> In fact, thinking of it, a really good language should imho *require*
> verbosity (how about a *minimum* length - or maybe even a
> dictionary-based sanity check - for identifiers?), since that already
> keeps all those lazy morons away who think that "shortcuts are cool".

No, that wouldn't be a really good language, that
would be a language designed by someone with a
very shallow understanding of what makes programs
understandable.

A piece of code such as

    for (i = 0; i < numThings; i++)
       total[i] += things[i];

is NOT improved by rewriting it as

    for (theLoopIndex = 0; theLoopIndex < numThings; theLoopIndex++)
       total[theLoopIndex] += things[theLoopIndex];

Quite the reverse, IMO.

-- 
Greg