[Microbit-Python] Accessor API design on the micro:bit

[Carol Willing]

While I am joining this discussion after a couple of months of history, 
I am going to step back for a moment and ask a simple question:

Does this have to be a decision between x, x(), get_x()?

For the accelerometer (not necessarily all other functionality, but 
since the accelerometer is built into the chip and accessible without 
soldering anything, it will be used by many), could we support all three?

If I was an 11 year old with access to Google, I could find resources 
appropriate for an 11 year old that use all three of these approaches: 
Young Coders workshop, Adafruit/Sparkfun, MicroPython tutorials, Python 
for Kids book, and others.

If I didn't have access to Google, I, as a student, would use `help` or 
example programs to model what I would choose. It's critical for the 
educational setting for the approach to be consistent within an example 
program. While in a perfect world that might imply consistent across all 
example programs.

Yet, we know that there are several approaches to programming that lend 
the same result but with differing implementations.

It seems to me if there is space to support all three for the 
accelerometer that would make reasonable sense. We can tailor the help 
message to guide to the desired approach; yet, all three will work for 
the student whether they are using a recommended approach or something 
that they googled.

Based on my experience teaching a wide spectrum of children, I do think 
with gentle instruction all levels will be able to use the accelerometer.

Warmly,
Carol


-- 
*Carol Willing*
Developer | Willing Consulting
https://willingconsulting.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/microbit/attachments/20151031/cab777e5/attachment.html>