On Nov 17, 7:46 am, Brian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Had a unsettling conversation with a CS instructor that > teaches at local high schools and the community > college. This person is a long-term Linux/C/Python > programmer, but he claims that the install, config, and > library models for C# have proved to be less > problematic than Python. So both his courses (intro, > data structs, algorithms) are taught in C#. > > I am a low-end (3-year) journeyman Pythonista, and I > was attracted to the language because of its > simplicity. And I have come to enjoy the richness of > available libraries. > > Many of the good people of this NG may be 'too close' > to answer, but has Python, as a general devel platform, > lost its simplicity ? Is library install too complex > and unreliable ? Will my dog go to heaven ?
I started out with some javascript and ruby background, and I "mastered" (i.e., could do everything I wanted to do in) python in a few months (including playing with the GTK bindings). I only have a GED, so I'm not the smartest programmer in the world or anything. But even so, the learning curve for python, for me, was very gradual. Nothing to too complex to swallow a spoonful at a time. After several years of using python (a very short time in the long-run, mind you), I think that the basic concepts are as simple as ever, and it remains a prime candidate for a CS 101 course. On the other hand, C# and .NET seems like a lot of baggage to bring to the table. First off, you have to introduce the CLR and how it relates to C#, then you have to deal with all the public, private, etc, syntaxis for constructors/destructors. I don't see how anyone could claim that C# is simpler to teach than python. I mean, (non-PC statement follows), it's easier to teach retarded, blind children to recite the lord's prayer backwards, in sign language, than it is to get a working .net environment set up for actual use w/o installing the latest visual studio. And not everyone had five-million dollars (or a corporate license) to get the latest and greatest VS. Regards, Jordan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
