On 27 Oct, 2005, at 2:27, Amit Aronovitch wrote:
Nir Soffer wrote:
Its a nice article and relevant to people who know to program in other
languages - but in this case it is NOT relevant, as the students don't
have any background in other languages. For those students, unless
they know some other language, the Python way is the only way :-).
They will find this article useful later when they learn their second
language.
On the contrary - it might be even more relevant for first language
course. Note that it is addressed to the lecturer, not the students.
Since many teachers have the wrong concept of python variables, they
tend to "spoil" the students:
* They waste time on useless definitions of what a "variable" is
(students already *know* what a name is, so it takes only a few words),
the only result of which is confusing them.
* They explain python statements and examples using misleading terms:
e.g. read "a=3" as "store the value 3 in the variable a" (instead of
"bind the name a to the object 3") - no wonder the student would expect
the previous "value" to be overriden.
Then use the correct definition when you teach - but don't talk about
how variables work in other languages.
Best Regards,
Nir Soffer
