Is this message some kind of joke or did you just send it to the wrong mailing-list/recipient?
On Sun, 1 Jul 2018 20:21:19 -0700 Matt Arcidy <marc...@gmail.com> wrote: > This cynical view on students is shocking! Everyone on this list has > been a student or a learner for far longer than an educator, and the > perspective from students and learners are far more important than > educators to assess this angle regardless. Can anyone adequately > explain why this specific modality of learning, a student-in-a-seat > based educator, must outweigh all other modalities learners use to > increase knowledge and skill, from the perspectives of policy, tool > creation, and each of our time spent learning? > > Shortest story: > Teach not to re-use names. > > Short story: > 1) What about the full mosaic of learning vs. this myopic view on > seat-based student-educator interaction? > 2) What about smart, motivated, diligent and cautious students? > 3) What weight should educator opinion be given with respect to > providing convenience to professional Python programmers? > 4) Who is this Student Stupid von Densemeister anyways? > 5) Are assignment expressions convenience and is any danger the pose > unmitagatble? > 6) Consider adding an "Important Topics not Covered" or "Further > Reading" reading section to your class description > 7) Creating examples showing this effect is easy, especially when not > actually re-using the name in the expression for explanatory purposes. > it's the same as creating examples showing how re-use works in > comprehensions. > > > Let's stop constructing these fake Students. They only work as > appeals to the people we have come across whose lack of understanding > has made our life painful. This construction is actively filtering > all the good students for the sake of influencing this decision, yet > again punishing or discounting the intelligent, quick, and diligent. > > And what of this underlying premise that educator's should > _significantly_ influence language development? Limiting Python's > tools to Student Straw-man's ability to learn is just dissonant, they > have nothing to do with each other, nor does this cause-effect > relationship actually exist. Let's evaluate this reductionist > statement: > "I understand X, but this other person is not capable of understanding > X, therefore X should not exist" Is has there ever been an X for > which this is true, let alone the backwardation necessary to fully > close the statement? > > The actual argument is far less reductionist, yet even more ridiculous: > "I understand X, this other person may take time to learn X, and may > use X wrong, therefore X should not exist" > "I understand assignment expressions, but this other class of person > may take time to learn assignment expressions, and may use assignment > expressions wrong, therefore assignment expressions should not be > accepted" > > Rhetorically I disagree with how teaching is being presented, to the > point of near insult (for me lacking a better term). You are saying > these statements about _my_ learning path, (though not personally of > course.) Each of you occupied a role of student at some point, and > each of these statements are being made about your path as well. Do > these ring true of your student experience? What about your much > broader experience as a _learner_? You think a tool shouldn't exist > because it took you time to learn it and you wrote some hard to debug > code, and possibly crashed production, got fired, lost your house and > your pet snake, and crashed the planet into the sun? > > Now I yield, I will accept this position: all/some students cannot > learn this (or it's too complex to teach), but they must learn this > during some class to quickly become effective python developers. How > much weight should this position have in this decision? Let's appeal > to the learner in us. How much of our learner's path, percentage of > total time learning all things python related, has been in a seat > listening to someone else, and that's the only place from which we > gained the knowledge to meet the educator's objective? This time > spent in a class, how does that compare to hours in other learning > modalities? Is this percentage not exactly the weight assigned to > that position? Are people hired from pure class-room based experience > expected to require zero further learning? Are people more valuable > based on classroom hours or work hours? > > As for handling teaching the subject or not, this is easily remedied > with how I do it: "Important Topics not Covered", with resources. > > Anyone here can rightfully claim educator status by having taught > another person something related to this language, which includes > at-work mentoring, informal discussions, posting/replying on SO, > blogging, etc. Are they not being solicited to comment as well? It's > possible to answer this question while vehemently disagreeing with the > PEP. This focus on people who are being ostensibly paid to teach is > myopic. > > Concretely, it's clear to me that parent-local effects can be > dangerously non-obvious when reading and mimicking code without > undertsanding. But when? And how to guard against? How about this: > teach proper (i.e. not) re-using names. The name will still be > ejected to the parent scope, but there won't be any use of it. Teach > the explicit declare pattern first (as everyone does anyways), explain > to not re-use. Regardless of when re-use is done, it is always (or > only) as dangerous as the effect the bound value has anyways, and any > re-use has the potential to trigger the same dangerous behaviors. > > Must we continue this educator assessment of PEP 572? Educators are > not gate-keepers, and the only measure of their success is what > students learn, and students have a far larger and more fine-grained > mosaic now than ever. Seat-based education plays a far smaller role > in anyone's learning path than ever before, and even while in the seat > they have access to Google. All this yield to tiling the outcome in > the favor of the educator by assigning the goal meeting to them, not > to the diligence of the student to learn. How unfair to the student. > > I consider this position purposefully ignoring motivated self-learners > of high ability and skill, or just plain old diligent programmers who > learned to read specs before using tools. > > I don't like posting to python-dev because it's not really my realm, > but this topic is insanely tilted against PEP572 for the most > ridiculous of reasons. I am Pro-572 , so I have decided to join > critique of the educator position. I would rather do it on > python-Ideas, and I want more types of educators solicited, as well as > students and learners. And yes, lets assess your specific lesson > plans if you will make claims it's not possible. Do you even teach > the difference between assignments and expressions at all? > > To have this raised in the this stage of this PEP, and on the dev > list, illustrates how long it took educators to understand the tool to > begin with, as opposed to those who understood even if they disagree. > To have a room full of seat-based educators provide feedback on a tool > they have had 30m to understand as critical to shaping the language is > not defensible in these lower courts. This angle cannot withstand > rigorous scrutiny because each premise is false and it rests the > majority of students being dense. They aren't, and the vast majority > of learners don't need class-room education anyways, so what is this > weight being placed on the opinion of these educators? I agree it's > important to hear it, but dimishingly. > > This is not to say that PEP572 should be accepted otherwise. However, > this educator angle, raised only now and depending on this > platonically dumb student and a non-creative approach to education, is > just pure straw-man to distract from the point at hand. And while I > have repeated "straw-man" as the critique, I dislike leaning on such > a debate-team crutch, and of course employing straw-man doesn't mean > the point is invalid. it just means the rhetoric is bad. However, as > the underlying premise is a severe minority opinion yet claiming to be > broad, and the absolute percentage of solicited opinions is 0% (to the > 17th place), I don't see any importance to the position of educators > right now, especially since these educators in the thread are > complaining about an increase in their personal work, for which it > appears they were compensated (this is pretty bad straw-man, sorry). > > And to repeat, what about the learners? Time spent in seat based > education is so insanely small now. The fact that the name is ejected > to the parent stop is not terribly difficult, and appropriately > factored examples showing the the effect of scope ejection will be > easy to construct, even if trivial for explanation purposes. So what, > exactly, is the issue with learning it? > > > > On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 4:35 PM Chris Barker via Python-Dev > <python-dev@python.org> wrote: > > > > On Sun, Jul 1, 2018 at 8:35 AM, Michael Selik <m...@selik.org> wrote: > >> > >> As Mark and Chris said (quoting Mark below), this is just one straw in the > >> struggle against piling too many things on the haystack. Unlike some > >> changes to the language, this change of such general use that it won't be > >> an optional topic. Once widely used, it ain't optional. > > > > > > Exactly -- and I also emphasis that this would complicate the language in a > > broad way -- a much bigger deal than adding a self contained new expression > > or even the nonlocal keyword. > > > > But to be clear about my take -- it will make the language that little bit > > harder to teach, but it will also add a bit of complexity that will effect > > us non-newbies as well. > > > > Is it worth it? maybe. I know I like a better way to express the > > loop-and-a-half concept in particular. > > > > -CHB > > > > > > > > -- > > > > Christopher Barker, Ph.D. > > Oceanographer > > > > Emergency Response Division > > NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice > > 7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax > > Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception > > > > chris.bar...@noaa.gov > > _______________________________________________ > > Python-Dev mailing list > > Python-Dev@python.org > > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev > > Unsubscribe: > > https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/marcidy%40gmail.com _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
