[Microbit-Python] Notes from "developers meet teachers" session

[Harry Percival]

Hi gang,

Y'all may know Nick ran a session with Computing At School to introduce
teachers to Python developers.  Here are the notes I took while working
with the teacher I met:


## possible confusion from no. of arguments to method that looks like a
function

>>> microbit.display.set_pixel(2,3)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: function takes 4 positional arguments but 3 were given

--> error msg confusing, 2 or 3 or 4 arguments?


## some things that are different from normal Python

- random function is not like python one!  grr

- perhaps more confusingly, sleep uses different units from time.sleep. arg!

(neither of these are dealbreakers, just maybe something to warn ppl about?)



## workflow of save + flashing, the editor

download / save / remember to rename is annoying.  but we found a shortcut
- you can save directly to the flash drive.

re: editor, we found ourselves wanting a shortcut key for save/download

re editor, we wanted to save the file out of the editor.  maybe having a
button for that is too much, but we did struggle to copy + paste into
notepad cos it had linux line endings.

## other misc

x,y pixels starting at top left is not like standard x,y in maths... but,
ok.

re microrepl readme:  teacher asks, what is a virtualenv?


Sorry these are in rough form, hope they might spark some ideas or just
provide some useful background knowledge for ppl.

Hope you're all having a great christmas!

HP


-- 
------------------------------
Harry J.W. Percival
------------------------------
Twitter: @hjwp
Mobile:  +44 (0) 78877 02511
Skype:         harry.percival
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