Re: [seul-edu] It looks like I'm going to learn Python

["Gary Frankenbery" <gfranken@grantspass.k12.or.us>]

Few High Schools use the Python/Java combo for teaching computer programming
as Rakis suggests below.

High School Computer Science teachers usually pick the language/platform for
their introductory programming course.  For many, this introductory course
does NOT use C++.  However, for the advanced High School programming courses
they teach C++, because it is the chosen language of the College Board for
the Advanced Placement (AP) program.

The AP Computer Science/C++ curriculum is carefully spelled out, and does
NOT include friend classes or multiple inheritance (go to
www.collegeboard.org and dig down to the Comp. Sci. material--there you can
find a detailed description of the AP Comp Sci curriculum).

Next year, I plan (for my advanced courses) to use the KDE Integrated
Development Environment, called KDevelop, for teaching C++ under GNU/Linux.

I'll teach Visual Basic, under Windows, in the introductory course.

This gives students variety in languages and OS environments.

Gary Frankenbery
Grants Pass High School
Grants Pass, OR

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rakis" <rakis@wt.net>
To: <seul-edu@seul.org>
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2000 6:40 PM
Subject: Re: [seul-edu] It looks like I'm going to learn Python


| On Thu, 06 Apr 2000, you wrote:
| > On Wed, 5 Apr 2000, Rakis wrote:
| > And also I think that in teaching OO one must be very  careful.
| > OO is not about using objects, its about object-design. In  C++
| > OO design realisation is  very  restrictive  and  clumsy  (Sp?)
|
| Actually, the main problem with OO in C++ is that it's too flexible.
| C/C++ was built upon the theory that "The programmer is always right" and
| therefore has little in the way of protecting the programmer from himself.
The
| concepts of "friend" classes/functions and even multiple inheritance
really
| just add complexity where it isn't absolutely necessary.
| I most certainly agree with the part about C++ objects being clumsy, it
| takes the average college CS major a couple months just to get up to a
basic
| operating level with OOP in C++. It's not the OO concepts, it's the fact
that
| the clunky C++ language gets in the way. Few colleges anymore start out
with
| C/C++ for even their CS students. University of Illniois starts their
students
| out with Scheme and Purdue begins with Java.
| For anyone thinking of teaching a programming language in k-12 just go
| ahead and forget about using C/C++ They're awesome languages and I
definitely
| wouldnt consider anyone a programmer without knowing them, however, for
| starters, they're just too advanced.
|
| > Under Python object-orientedness is natural and tidy.
| > (I even dare recommend Python to teach OO instead of C++)
|
| Python certainly wouldn't be the worst choice, however, I saw a few
| places that students could run into trouble with. The main point being
that in
| order to understand how to use OO concepts in Python, you really need to
know
| how the Python interpreter works. The theory is, of course, the same but
in
| order to figure out what you're doing wrong while coding, you almost have
to
| know how Python works at the underlying level. Along with this, Python
does not
| directly support Data Inheritance. Of all the OO langaues I'm aware of,
only
| PERL does this. Certainly the two most commonly used OO languages (C++ and
| Java) do not work this way. I'd be hesitant to start with OO in python
mainly
| for those reasons.
| Personally, I've found Java to be the the best language for OO. It's
| clean, simple, and strictly adheres to the OO philosophy. Begining with
Python
| for programming fundamentals like loops, functions, and basic I/O then
moving
| on to Java would seem to be the ideal solution at the moment.
|
| > If  you   teach   OO,   don't   switch   to   it   just   after
| > structural/modular programming: it's very different philosophy,
| > requiring different thinking. (In fact, I am not ready to think
| > OO way myself :-(
|
| Definitely, most of the C coders I know that have migrated to C++ are
| still writing C programs..... they just use a few "toys" from C++ now and
then.
| Oh, they'll write the occasional class or two but the flow of their
program is
| structured, not OO.
|
| >
| >
| Rakis