On Mar 19, 1:52 pm, "Sells, Fred" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > glad to hear it. Those of us who would like to introduce it in reluctant > schools elsewhere could benefit from a post-semester evaluation, including > student comments and some sample, running projects. > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2007 9:22 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Choosing Python > > The choice is made. The school where I teach has finally > made its decision to teach Python first. For several years, > we have been teaching Java first, and before that, C++. > > I introduced Python in one of my courses and got a lot of > flak from some of the other faculty. I also introduced Ruby, > and got even more flak. In my course, the students loved > Python for its simplicity, its power, and its flexibility. > > It is clear that Python is not the ultimate, one-size-fits-all > language. No language is. However, for a beginner's > language it is nearly ideal. Further, it is a great language > for a wide range of serious programming problems. > > For large-scale, safety-critical software, I still prefer Eiffel > or Ada. Java could vanish tomorrow and, with Python > and Ruby available, no one would miss Java at all. As for > C++, for any serious software systems, it should always be > the language of last resort. C++, as an object-oriented > assembler, is pretty much its own virus. > > Already, students are turning in really good projects in Python, > and some in Ruby. Not all the professors are on-board with > this decision, but in time I think they will be. > > Richard Riehle > > --http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
What would be really cool is to mix in the whole C/C++ extension paradigm...or IPython/Jython in a second semester class. That way the students could get into more real-world language mixes, which most developers have to deal with. We run COBOL, Python, PHP, and some truly awful VBA here. I wish I could have learned Python to being with, but it would have needed to have been supplemented with some of the other lower-level languages as well. Mike -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
