What is considered an "advanced" topic in Python?

[Rustom Mody]

On Sunday, May 31, 2015 at 9:55:45 AM UTC+5:30, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Sun, May 31, 2015 at 1:30 PM, Rustom Mody wrote:
> > <Admission>
> > In a recent course I taught, I used a[0] and a[1:] to split arrays and write
> > recursive functions a la Haskell in Python.
> > Is it efficient? no
> > Is it idiomatic python? NO!
> > Is it good to do that? That depends on one's priority.
> > In mine, learning recursion is more important than learning idiomatic python
> > </Admission>
> 
> If recursion is more important than idiomatic Python, why are you
> using a Python interpreter? Use Python to teach Python, and use
> Haskell to teach Haskell!

Heh! I would have expected less naivete from you Chris!
Firstly idiomatic haskell is as low priority (maybe more so) than idiomatic python

More to the point no language matches perfectly¹ everything that a learner needs to learn.
Can you write a kernel module in python? (Or Haskell?)
Can you see details of machine state and transitions in python?
Can you client-script a browser in python?
C is the best fit for the first
Assembly for the second
Javascript for the third.

And probably a dozen other languages for a dozen other key concepts.

Finally the idiomatic vs fundamentals is not a clear binary divide.
If I were interviewing someone claiming to be a C programmer who did not know
the difference between postfix and prefix ++, I'd be darned suspicious.
OTOH if someone who had written significant code in C simply refused to write
a '++' saying "Causes just too much trouble" most people would regard it as odd
but not unacceptable.

¹ or can. Thats Gödel's second theorem for you