Re: [Edu-sig] Python as a first language for computer sciencist

[Brad Miller]

On Oct 17, 2005, at 12:45 PM, John Zelle wrote: Carlos, I doubt that you'll get much disagreement on this list about Python  being an excellent first language choice. Hence, there is unlikely to be    much of a "discussion." I wrote a paper titled "Python as a First  Language" back in 1998, you can find it at: http://mcsp.wartburg.edu/zelle/python Carlos, John also has an excellent textbook:  Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science.  We are in our second year of using this book in our CS1 class and are very happy with it.  Because of its power and simplicity we have found that students enjoy the class and can do more interesting projects in their first course than they could with Java.   For example my students are now (in week 7 of the semester) writing functions to enlarge images, smooth the enlarged images, and do edge detection on the images the image library is so simple that the students can really concentrate on the problem solving parts of the exercise.  For me these are great introductory exercises that get them using nested loops, simple conditionals, and functions.  I think the students have more fun and are more successful when they can see the results of their work visually. We also use Python in our CS2 course which focuses on data structures, and one of our colleagues is using Python in his advanced data structures course this year.  The great thing about using Python in a data structures course is that there is almost a one-to-one mapping from pseudocode to Python.  So the students can really see the how the concepts get mapped to code without all the extra overhead that a language like Java imposes. Of course we also teach and use Java but we don't introduce our students to Java until the third course in our introductory sequence.  The nice thing about holding off on Java until the third course is that the students now know enough computer science that we can work on bigger and more interesting problems while they are learning Java.  In addition I can now use Python to compare and contrast as I introduce new language concepts in Java. Brad -- Brad Miller, PhD Assistant Professor Luther College http://www.cs.luther.edu/~bmiller jabber:  [EMAIL PROTECTED] Carlos Eduardo Sotelo Pinto wrote: Hi people  i was making a researching about python for computer science students as a first language, and it coul be good in Peruvian Universities and Colleges, may you have some experiences, or articles or ideas about it. Coul you send me to my personal email address. Also I propose to you to began a discussion about this topic. I think in my personal opinion, python could be better for students, for one so imoprtant reazon: Python is clearly and powerfull; and because of it, students just think in solve problems and learning programming, and the language could be an excellent easy learning progamming tool. Also teachers can use the power of python for making good problems for the students. Based on my actual experience, I can say that Python _is_ a much better  first language choice than C, C++, Java, or Visual Basic. It has most of  the advantages of Scheme, but with a smoother transition to more  traditional languages. More and more CS programs are discovering the joy  of teaching Python first. So far, I've not heard of any program that  tried Python and then went back to something like C++ or Java. Incidentally, I think Python is a marvelous tool throughout the CS  curriculum. It's a language that gets out of your way so that you can  concentrate on fundamental concepts. I even use Python in my Op Systems  class, something I'm frequently told Python isn't good for. Not true.  Python is (arguably) the simplest vehicle that allows my students to  program directly with underlying Posix system calls. It's simpler than  doing systems programming in C or C++. To say nothing of trying to  access the OS in Java... While I would not try to write an OS in Python,  it sure is a lot easier for teaching _about_ them. That is, I am using  the programming as a learning tool, not trying to teach them how to  program an OS. --John --  John M. Zelle, Ph.D.             Wartburg College Professor of Computer Science    Waverly, IA [EMAIL PROTECTED]          (319) 352-8360 _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

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