On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 4:57 PM Guido van Rossum <gu...@python.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 2:41 PM Michael Selik <m...@selik.org> wrote: > >> This thread started with a request for educator feedback, which I took to >> mean observations of student reactions. I've only had the chance to test >> the proposal on ~20 students so far, but I'd like the chance to gather more >> data for your consideration before the PEP is accepted or rejected. >> > > Sure. Since the target for the PEP is Python 3.8 I am in no particular > hurry. It would be important to know how you present it to your students. > Absolutely. Since this has come up, I'll make an effort to be more systematic in data collection. > On Sun, Jun 24, 2018 at 11:09 AM Steven D'Aprano <st...@pearwood.info> >> wrote: >> >>> Remember, the driving use-case which started this (ever-so-long) >>> discussion was the ability to push data into a comprehension and then >>> update it on each iteration, something like this: >>> >>> x = initial_value() >>> results = [x := transform(x, i) for i in sequence] >>> >> >> If that is the driving use-case, then the proposal should be rejected. >> The ``itertools.accumulate`` function has been available for a little while >> now and it handles this exact case. The accumulate function may even be >> more readable, as it explains the purpose explicitly, not merely the >> algorithm. And heck, it's a one-liner. >> >> results = accumulate(sequence, transform) >> > > I think that's a misunderstanding. At the very least the typical use case > is *not* using an existing transform function which is readily passed to > accumulate -- instead, it's typically written as a simple expression (e.g. > `total := total + v` in the PEP) which would require a lambda. > Plus, I don't know what kind of students you are teaching, but for me, > whenever the solution requires a higher-order function (like accumulate), > this implies a significant speed bump -- both when writing and when reading > code. (Honestly, whenever I read code that uses itertools, I end up making > a trip to StackOverflow :-). > Mostly mid-career professionals, of highly varying backgrounds. The higher-order functions do require some cushioning getting into, but I have some tricks I've learned over the years to make it go over pretty well. On Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 7:48 PM Steven D'Aprano <st...@pearwood.info> wrote: >> > On Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 10:59:43AM -0700, Michael Selik wrote: >>> >>> Of course they do -- they're less fluent at reading code. They don't >>> have the experience to judge good code from bad. >>> >> >> On the other hand, an "expert" may be so steeped in a particular >> subculture that [they] no longer can distinguish esoteric from intuitive. >> Don't be so fast to reject the wisdom of the inexperienced. >> > > Nor should we cater to them excessively though. While the user is indeed > king, it's also well known that most users when they are asking for a > feature don't know what they want (same for kings, actually, that's why > they have advisors :-). > > >> The question we should be asking is, do we only add features to Python >>> if they are easy for beginners? It's not that I especially want to add >>> features which *aren't* easy for beginners, but Python isn't Scratch and >>> "easy for beginners" should only be a peripheral concern. >>> >> >> On the contrary, I believe that "easy for beginners" should be a major >> concern. Ease of use has been and is a, or even the main reason for >> Python's success. When some other language becomes a better teaching >> language, it will eventually take over in business and science as well. >> Right now, Python is Scratch for adults. That's a great thing. Given the >> growth of the field, there are far more beginner programmers working today >> than there ever have been experts. >> > > I'm sorry, but this offends me, and I don't believe it's true at all. > Python is *not* a beginners language, and you are mixing ease of use and > ease of learning. Python turns beginners into experts at an unprecedented > rate, and that's the big difference with Scratch. > By saying "Scratch for adults" I meant that Python is a language that can be adopted by beginners and rapidly make them professionals, not that it's exclusively a beginner's language. Also, Scratch and similar languages, like NetLogo, have some interesting features that allow beginners to write some sophisticated parallelism. I don't mean "beginner's language" in that it's overly simplistic, but that it enables what would be complex in other languages. I realize that my phrasing was likely to be misunderstood without knowing the context that I teach working professionals who are asked to be immediately productive at high-value tasks.
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