[Edu-sig] python in high school

[Randy Edwards]

    I see Python as simply more suited to educational use and intro 
programming than VB.  Forcing indentation, its readability, its *lack* of GUI 
drag-and-drop widgets means that students have more of a clue as to what's 
going on.

> even within that platform. It's quite possible in the near future that
> students might have Windows machines at home and the wherewithal to buy VB,

    The educational versions of VB are fairly cheap, and in schools I've seen 
that most interested students buy the educational version (it's what, 
something like $60?).

    The problems with this are many.  To mention a couple, if you exclude only 
*one* excited, wannabe compsci programmer because of money issues, you're dead 
wrong.

    One cannot overestimate the power of (legally) giving an excited student a 
program and saying, "Hey, take that home and play with it."  Isn't one key 
goal that teachers are aiming for is to create lifelong learners who will 
learn on their own?

    Also, those educational copies of VB have a highly restricted license 
agreement -- they can't be used for commercial work.  I've seen several cases 
of an excited kid wanting to turn his new VB skills into work creating some 
cheesy app for the local video store.  Cool, but should we be *teaching* kids 
to violate license agreements from the word go?

> Having a graphical IDE is less important for programming instruction than
> you might think. In fact, you can easily make the case that if you're going
> to use a graphical IDE, it's better to start students without it and then
> introduce it partway into the curriculum.

    As a former compsci professor, I wholeheartedly agree on both points!

    The gotcha is that popular culture views things differently.  This is akin 
to the history teacher trying to teach that there's more to history than 
watching biased documentaries on TV...

-- 
  Regards, | Asking an MSCE to make an unbiased choice about
  .        | software is like asking a Ford dealer's mechanic
  Randy    | how reliable Toyotas or Pontiacs are.