Steven D'Aprano writes: > On Fri, Nov 29, 2019 at 12:55:13AM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote: > > Abdur-Rahmaan Janhangeer writes: > > > > > "Designed With Learning in Mind" > > > > That's Python. Guido said so from the beginning, > > Is it? Did he? Do you have references for that?
Yes, it is in my opinion (I use it in teaching all the time in the same way I would use pseudo-code, and I haven't taught a class in programming in 25 years). Yes, he did. No, just my memory of occasions where he has said or posted that use of Python as a teaching language informed his design philosophy and decisions (which is the minimum that "with learning in mind" implies). > Python is not Scratch, nor is it ABC. ABC was a *big* influence on > the evolution of Python, but (in my opinion) at least half of that > influence was to convince Guido *not* to make Python "designed with > learning in mind". "Design with learning in mind" literally means "don't forget about beginners in Python and in programming", not "sacrifice everything else on the altar of education". > For example, ABC used its own alledgedly "beginner friendly" > terminology that nobody else in programming used; Python mostly > sticks to common terminology used by other languages which will be > recognised by programmers coming from other languages. Which is a decision that has learning Python (vs. learning programming in general) in mind, no? > Off-topic: > > I'm consistently and frequently frustrated by the community's use of PEP > id numbers as jargon. I consider it to be a classic example of the use > of jargon to exclude, rather than the sense of using it to streamline > communication. Jargon has a third role: to identify members of the community. Of course that overlaps with exclusion, but it's not the same. And PEP numbers have a fourth purpose when used as jargon (this applies to any numbered formal standard such as RFCs or ISO): they are self-citing. In that sense, they are *inclusive*. They're an invitation to learn more than you ever wanted to know about the things the community cares about. > Apart from PEP 8, I don't know a single PEP id off by heart > (not even the PEPs I have authored) I know more that that (off the top of my head, 0, 1, 7, 8, 263, 383, 393, 484, and 3000, none of which I authored although I was extremely noisy about 263), which is less than 2% I guess. But when I type "pep" into my browser's address bar, I get "https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0000/"; as the top choice. I then substitute the PEP number for "0000" and voilà! Self-citing. Most people will have to work a little harder at first, but if they do it a few times they will be rewarded with a well-trained browser. > and your footnote above reads as pure gobbledygook to me. That's what footnotes are for: to hold gobbledygook that only the initiated or directly concerned will care about. I put it there so readers could ignore it if they wanted to without interrupting the flow. Little did I know it would trigger a rant. > There is not enough context to guess the meaning of 3107 or 484 > (Guido intended 3107 to support 484 did he? how uninformative) so > there is nothing to be done except to stop reading, switch to a > browser, and google them both. Which was my intention, because I wanted readers to be able to easily confirm the metadata (specifically, dates). Self-citing. Steve _______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list -- python-ideas@python.org To unsubscribe send an email to python-ideas-le...@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-ideas.python.org/ Message archived at https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-ideas@python.org/message/G3KV7I26YRBWIWGSTG4FMFCPODSXRSBK/ Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
