New Python implementation

Alan Gauld alan.gauld at yahoo.co.uk
Tue Feb 16 21:00:55 EST 2021


On 16/02/2021 22:23, boB Stepp wrote:

>> And that's just one example, the language is now full of meta goodness
>> that makes it incomprehensible to beginners. 
> 
> Hmm.  I'm not sure I can agree, Alan.  My son took to Python 3 like a duck to
> water.  

That's interesting. I knew you were teaching him but not
how he got on. Good for him.

My comments stem from the feedback emails I get from my tutorial.
People get messages like "foo is not an iterable" or references
to range objects and such and it confuses them.

I never got those kinds of messages for the v.1 tutorial...

> Yes, there is a ton of meta-goodness in Python, but most of it can be ignored
> to be able to *just use it*.  

But the problem I see is that you can't ignore it because
it bubbles to the surface in error messages. And if you
don't know what it means you don't know that you can ignore it!
That's where a teacher/mentor comes in, they can say "Oh that's OK
just ignore it!" but if you are on your own you think
"Oh no! What do I do now?"

But as I say, I can't find anything better so I'll stick
with it for now.

-- 
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
http://www.amazon.com/author/alan_gauld
Follow my photo-blog on Flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alangauldphotos




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