* Chris Rebert:
On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 11:52 PM, Alf P. Steinbach <al...@start.no> wrote:
[Cross-posted comp.programming and comp.lang.python]
Hi.
I may finally have found the perfect language for a practically oriented
introductory book on programming, namely Python.
C++ was way too complex for the novice, JScript and C# suffered from too
fast-changing specifications and runtime environment, Java, well, nothing
particularly wrong but it's sort of too large and unwieldy and inefficient.
I don't know whether this will ever become an actual book. I hope so!
But since I don't know much Python -- I'm *learning* Python as I write -- I
know that there's a significant chance of communicating misconceptions,
non-idiomatic ways to do things, bad conventions, etc., in addition to of
course plain errors of fact and understanding in general, to which I'm not
yet immune...
So I would would be very happy for feedback.
<snip>
http://preview.tinyurl.com/progintro
Cheers,
- Alf
PS: Please use the groups, this thread, for feedback; not e-mail. -DS
- The slogan is "batteries included", not "all batteries included".
- As a user of the platform, I can tell you it's "Mac OS X" (with a
space, not a slash).
Thanks!
I'll fix that right away. :-)
- ActivePython is a distribution, not an implementation. It's just the
standard CPython from python.org with some bundled extras.
Thanks, but it's also a language implementation, the way I use that word :-).
This is the same as the MinGW g++ C++ compiler is a language implementation, in
spite of being just a packaging of the CygWin compiler. Its origin doesn't
matter. But perhaps there is some better term than implementation, something not
involving discussing distributions and derivative works and so on? I.e. a term
that can be introduced in one line of text and is even more clear?
- I might consider making the first example multiline. Most cringe at
the use of semicolons in a Python program, although I can understand
it might be easier for the newbie to type correctly.
Hm. I didn't know that about "most cringe at" semicolons in Python. But I still
think the example is better on one line: short, concise, not introducing extra
tool usage (which is what the reader absolutely *has* to relate to).
- You might mention how unit testing is used in interpreted languages
to detect many sorts of errors detected by the compiler in compiled
languages
Yes, later. Unit-testing is done also for statically type checked languages. The
big difference lies in how much testing and at what time; this involves in
particular test-driven development (TDD). And it's touchy. Proponents of this
and that methodology will invariably argue that their methodology is best... :-)
Cheers, & thanks,
- Alf
PS: I added back in [comp.programming], since I think it's simplest to have all
the discussion, both Python-specific and general, in one single thread.
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