On Apr 22, 11:35Â am, Rui Maciel <rui.mac...@gmail.com> wrote: > lcrocker wrote: > > > > I recently recommended > > Python to a friend who wants to start learning programming. Hurdles > > like this don't help someone like him. > > If your friend believes that having to do an extra pair of clicks or typing > sudo apt-get install python-tk is an unbeatable hurdle then your friend's > computer skills are awfully lacking and he won't have much success learning > how to write programs.
There are two worldviews here and they are as far as far can be. Its good to see them before arguing. 1. python as a standalone language 2. python as part of an (OS-related) ecosystem In windows python may or may not exist. And if it exists and I go inside the python directories and start messing around -- deleting some files, modifying others etc -- what will happen? Nothing much. My python programs will stop working. Presumably if I reinstall, it will be fine thereafter. What about linux? As an experiment I just tried $ aptitude purge python #Noobs BEWARE of that command and aptitude was too confused to give me a coherent report Tried then $ aptitude purge python2.7 The list of packages that it would purge was in hundreds. Heres a small sample of what would go: Firstly there are all the python-* packages. This is obvious. Not so obvious that some like python-csound were probably installed by me. Others like python-debian are needed for the basic health and functioning of the system. And besides these there are a pile of others that have no relation to python. A sample: asciidoc, bzr, dia, eog, gcj-*, gdb(!!), gimp, gnome-* (about 20 of these) printconf… So python is completely optional in windows. It is a part of the infrastructure on linux Messing with it is almost like saying: "I dont see what that vmlinuz file is doing in /boot. So I removed it." Coming to the OP question: a. The python that PSF provides is suitable for learning python b. The python that linux distros provide is part of the wireframe on which the system rests. b may be derived from a but they are hardly the same. They may look very similar but their intents are quite different. So when you say > If your friend believes that having to do an extra pair of clicks or typing > sudo apt-get install python-tk is an unbeatable hurdle then your friend's > computer skills are awfully lacking and he won't have much success learning > how to write programs. Its all correct what you say. You wont have too many people learning from you if thats how you say it. Remember that the difference between an expert and a noob is rarely a question of intelligence or diligence. Its just some boring trivial mountain of data that the expert has picked up over time -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
