oops, hit the send button too soon... here's some more:
On Tue, Oct 31, 2017 at 8:41 AM, Chris Barker - NOAA Federal < [email protected]> wrote: > > >> Nope. I totally get that they don’t know what a shell or command prompt >> is. THEY. NEED. TO. LEARN. Hiding it is not a good idea for anyone. > > > I actually take this approach myself in my classes. However, I also have > as prerequisites for my classes: > > Some Experience in some programming language > > And > > Basic familiarity with the command line. > > I then let them use whatever dev. Environment they want, while supporting > and recommending a good editor and the command line. > > However, If people want to learn python that don’t have those > prerequisites, then we suggest a different class designed for total newbies. > > In THAT class, we use a more proscribed dev environment so that everyone > is doing the same thing in the same way. It was IDLE, and has lately been > PyCharm. > > And the intro to data analytics class uses Anaconda and the Jupyter > notebook. > > My point? > > We're not in the business of making judgements about who should and > shouldn't become Python programmers - we're in the business of making sure > that Python is accessible to as many people as possible by removing > irrelevant barriers to adoption, > > > Sure, but who is “we”? I think “we” is the python community, not the > cPython developers. > > So providing an environment that makes it easy and obvious to install > packages is a great idea, but I think it’s the job of IDEs and other higher > level tools, not the REPL. > > If we need to add a feature to Python itself to make it easier for IDEs > and the like to implement dynamic package adding, then by all means, let’s > do it. > > Final note: > > I DO see a lot of questions ( on mailing lists, etc) from folks that try > to type “pip install something” at the python command line. > And sure, some of those are completly clueless about what a command line is and how to use it, but others DO have an idea about the command line, but dont know that: >>> pip install something File "<stdin>", line 1 pip install something ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax means: "this was supposed to be run at the command prompt" So I think defining a "pip" builtin that simply gave a helpful message would be a good start. (hmm, it's a syntax error, so not as simple as a builtin -- but it could be caught somehow to give a better message) At the end of the day, python is an open source programming language -- it simply is NOT ever going to provide one complete well integrated environment --we'll just have to live with that. -CHB -- Christopher Barker, Ph.D. Oceanographer Emergency Response Division NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice 7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception [email protected]
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