Python homework

[edmondo.giovannozzi at gmail.com]

Il giorno martedì 12 dicembre 2017 00:30:24 UTC+1, jlad... at itu.edu ha scritto:
> On Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 4:49:52 AM UTC-8, edmondo.g... at gmail.com wrote:
> 
> >   import numpy
> 
> I teach Python to students at varying levels.  As much as I love and use Numpy in my regular work, I try to avoid showing beginning Python students solutions that require third-party packages.  Here are my reasons:
> 
> 1. Not every programming novice needs to understand things at the bits-and-bytes level, but they should learn the inner workings of algorithms.  You won't always have a ready-made algorithm to solve your problem in a library function call, so you should learn to write your own.
> 
> 2. Package maintenance can be its own headache.  Sure, Anaconda can help, but it's a heavyweight distribution.  And not every student is working on a computer where they have the rights to install software.

I understand you points, on the other end, as we are not his teachers, we can also suggest other ways to solve its problem. 

Look that I haven't posted a complete solution, I just stopped at the same point he had already reached, and then I had given him just hints.

I think there is also another lessons that a student should learn: not to reinvent the wheel. But it may just be my feeling about this issue. 

I think also that introducing third-party package or not depends on the student environment. If he is studying to become an engineer he may have already been exposed to other proprietary software (the famous one). It could be useful to show him that most of the same things can be done in python with just an almost standard third-party package.

Cheers,
Edmondo