Kyle Slane wrote:
First of all well done on earning that vern.
I won't side either way on this. I like python, But i learned several
other languages before I started using it. But with python it makes
you program beautifully :).
Hilarious...more so since I just realized I'd be singing a whole
different tune if this conversation had happened as little as ten years ago.
Programs aren't *supposed* to be beautiful, they're supposed to be
functional, efficient, and (most importantly) done ON TIME & UNDER
BUDGET (prevailing attitude in industry & academia anymore). That being
the case, it's yet another reason to stuff Guido & python in a museum
somewhere and promptly forget them.
Very few potential employers are likely to take someone who codes their
projects in a self-proclaimed 'artistic' language serious these days.
I would say your point about libraries
could be valid, but if you learn how to use the properly then it
really does not apply. I just gone done converting a php script into
python.
Ever tried converting PHP to C? It's *very* quick & easy since they
share most of the same syntax, standard function names, etc. Most of the
syntactic conversion can be handled via a few simple sed expressions,
and all you're really left to do is insert or remove the explicit
variable allocations & other low-level variable handling code.
the python one seams to run much faster than the php scrip
did.
It *should*...my understanding is that most python code is actually
compiled these days. PHP can be compiled too (bcompile, bambalam, etc)
but it's a lot less common practice for some reason. Maybe it's because
python's installer & execution environments on windows (at least as of a
couple years ago) were rather clunky and error-prone. With the compiled
versions one only had to provide a few libraries and the code would work
more-or-less automagically.
Either way, you're probably not going to be more efficient/'faster' than
converting the thing to C (assuming efficiency matters that much for the
project), and the original draft language being C-like can only HELP
that conversion process.
I will have to agree that JAVA is crippled, i used to like it but it
is soo slow.
You misunderstand. Alot of the slowness in java is not really the
language's fault anymore. It's the coders that are the problem now. They
don't bother to fully understand the problem before they start hacking
at code & lean way too heavily on inheritance from other objects to
automagically solve their problems rather than having to re-invent even
the smallest wheel. God forbid they should have to code 10-20 extra
lines to make their own rather than inheriting an instantiation of an
object that provides the same thing plus a meg or two of other useless
stuff! They lose a whole two minutes of quality slashdotting doing that :)
On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 5:45 PM, Nemo Nihil <[email protected]> wrote:
Vern Ceder wrote:
Actually we don't teach Python in elementary - the conference covers the
K12 space. We actually teach programming in the elementary grades with
Scratch at the moment. We have taught Python to 8th graders however, and
it's gone quite well.
I'm fairly sure you could teach a monkey to code in python as well. That
doesn't necessarily make it the best language to teach them, does it? :)
Out of curiosity, is it *Python* in elementary you find wrong, or is it
the idea of teaching programming? And if it's Python, what have you found
evil about teaching Python in the lower grades?
It is Python that I find wrong, not teaching children to program. In fact, I
believe all children should learn some form of programming or scripting
since it helps develop critical logic and reasoning skills -- skills I find
are still surprisingly weak in many of my 'peers' in industry, I might add.
The main problem I have with python itself is that whitespace *still*
matters in its syntax. To the best of my knowledge, we no longer use punch
cards for programming purposes anywhere in industry so that should have been
phased out long ago. I guess going a little deeper, the bigger problem I
have with it is that it is very unlike C & C++ (by DESIGN, which makes it
all that much worse), in contrast to comparable languages like PHP and even
perl to a lesser extent.
Moreover, I feel that teaching children a fringe language like python will
ultimately hurt them should they decide to become professional software
engineers more than anything, simply BECAUSE it doesn't conform to common
language conventions and makes 'converting' more difficult since they've
already been initiated into the python mindset.
Java is similar because in their quest for extremely re-usable code, they
usually end up importing tons of data structures unnecessarily, which takes
it's toll in the form of the humungous memory & cpu footprint of their apps.
If you want an example, try LSI's new raid management software --
java-based, and it shows.
I'm not saying it isn't possible to write good programs in even fringe
languages; I'm just saying you better have a damn good reason to use a
fringe language in the first place, since there are going to be fewer people
using it outside of those non-fringe cases which are more easily and better
covered by mainstream languages. (Ex: the 'R' is great for statistics
people, but just try using it to write system software, or non-statistical
games of any sort)
I realize some of what I said may not be terribly clear, so feel free to ask
questions. I'm going to stop typing now though, because years of
slashdotting have shown that these kinds of things can easily degrade into
language wars, and I'm a lover not a fighter :)
Cheers,
Vern
Nemo Nihil wrote:
Teaching python in ELEMENTARY? That is sooo wrong...
Well, I guess it could be worse -- you could've been pushing java :)
Andrew Latham wrote:
What about at MA anniversary prices?
Andrew "lathama" Latham
TuxTone Inc.
http://TuxTone.com
[email protected]
On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 3:17 PM, Vern Ceder
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hmmmm... at DC restaurant prices it wouldn't be a huge party... ;)
Andrew Latham wrote:
How many beers is that?
Andrew "lathama" Latham
TuxTone Inc.
http://TuxTone.com
[email protected]
On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 2:59 PM, Vern Ceder
<[email protected]>
wrote:
Hey,
I'm pleased to report that the Python Software Foundation board has
voted
to
give me a grant of $500 to help cover my travel to the National
Educational
Computing Conference (NECC) this June to give a presentation on
teaching
Python programming in K12 schools. They don't give out that many
grants,
so
I'm feeling pretty special... ;)
Cheers,
Vern
--
This time for sure!
-Bullwinkle J. Moose
-----------------------------
Vern Ceder, Director of Technology
Canterbury School, 3210 Smith Road, Ft Wayne, IN 46804
[email protected]; 260-436-0746; FAX: 260-436-5137
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--
This time for sure!
-Bullwinkle J. Moose
-----------------------------
Vern Ceder, Director of Technology
Canterbury School, 3210 Smith Road, Ft Wayne, IN 46804
[email protected]; 260-436-0746; FAX: 260-436-5137
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