On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at 10:16 AM, kirby urner wrote:
> That brings up another point: once you've mastered Python's for, you also
> have easy access to list, set and dict comprehension syntax.
>
... and generator expression syntax, I should have added. :-D
>
I like Laura's ordering as well.
Good point on order of keyword introduction affecting ease. I agree with
yours, though having introduced functions first allows me to show how to
use return to short-circuit a loop without having to add the extra syntax
of break so early.
Dr. Andrew N. Harrington
Computer Science Department
G
I'd say it's not just a matter of which keywords one chooses but how many.
It'd be easy enough for Python to bloat with additional control structures
the "fit the brain" of those used to thinking a particular way.
I favor teaching any language with an assumption the student will always be
learning
I would take this sort of study with a pinch of salt...
The quality and skill of the teacher as well as the aptitude and
learning context of the students has a huge impact on the end result.
There are numerous studies that show this. To my mind this invalidates
the "use method X or Y in subject ar
I have found that if you begin teaching:
for item in lst:
and
for letter in word:
and then add break, and continue,
and then teach
for x in range(y):
and then teach
while (something):
it all goes better than if you begin with while loops.
But I don't know whether this means this is a bett
Look at page 19 on how the loop syntax was used! It was used just for
"repeat n times" - really simple, (and with a trivial useless loop body).
"while" is for a more complicated situation (in general) where there the
number of repetitions is controlled by a significant and flexible
condition. S
This list begs the question of whether English language words should take
precedence of those of another language or symbols such as used in APL, J
and so on, for important verbs.
I'm leery of such rankings anyway. Knowledge-by-survey is not the same as
knowledge.
Kirby
On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at
On Thursday, October 1, 2015 4:50pm, "Andre Roberge"
said:
...
The best keywords (combining result from the two groups) are thought to
include: repeat, again, loop, cycle
The worst keywords are thought to include: foreach, while, echo, duplicate, for
with "for" getting the worst res
On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 3:50 PM, Andre Roberge
wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Google has failed me, and I'm hoping that someone on this list could
> help...
>
> About a year or two ago, I read a study comparing different programming
> languages used for beginners. I believe there were at least four
