Computer Programming for Everybody

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

Kragen Sitaker wrote:

> > "Why use Python? We believe that Python is a good language for teaching to
> > absolute beginners."
> > 
> > I think he is really wrong here, and all he gives is his own subjective
> > evidence.
> 
> Well, he mentiones other people's subjective evidence, too.

And this makes it better because?  :)
 
> > Other research out of Rice University has shown that Scheme is must better
> > tuned for the kind of thing he's trying to do with Python.
 
> Such research cannot exist until psychology achieves much greater
> explanatory power than it has at present.  But I am interested in hearing
> what Rice has done with Python, because while the current state of
> learning research is rather poor, it is still good enough to be evidence
> in one direction or the other.
 
Rice hasn't tried Python, but they are getting results with Scheme.  Good
results.  It seems like Guido is marginalizing these results to get funding
to do research with Python.

> > He also completely misrepresents the DrScheme project....
> 
> Can you elaborate?

DrScheme and the project at Rice is geared towards *high school* students
with *minimal math background*.  He claims it is geared towards college
students with heavy math backgrounds.
 
> BTW, I agree with you on affirmative action.  MOre later.

Please, chime in on the thread---I am starting to feel I am the only one
around here.  :)
-- 
         -  bkuhn@ebb.org  -  Bradley M. Kuhn  -  bkuhn@gnu.org  -
                          http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn