[Python-ideas] Python 3000 TIOBE -3%

[Devin Jeanpierre]

On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 11:49 AM, Massimo Di Pierro
<massimo.dipierro at gmail.com> wrote:
> 50+% of the students have a mac and an increasing number of packages depend
> on numpy. Installing numpy on mac is a lottery.
>
> Those who do not have a mac have windows and they expect an IDE like
> eclipse. I know you can use Python with eclipse but they do not. They
> download Python and complain that IDLE has no autocompletion, no line
> numbers, no collapsible functions/classes.

At the University of Toronto we tell students to use the Wing IDE
(Wing 101 was developed specifically for our use in the classroom, in
fact). All classroom examples are done either in the interactive
interpreter, or in a session of Wing 101. All computer lab sessions
are done using Wing 101, and the first lab is dedicated specifically
for introducing how to edit files with it and use its debugging
features.

If students don't like IDLE, tell them to use a different editor
instead, and pretend that Python doesn't include one with itself. (By
default IDLE only shows an interactive session, so if they get curious
and click-y they'll still be in the dark.)

-- Devin