Re: [seul-edu] I'll put in my two cents... and ask for a penny...

[Timothy Wilson <wilson@visi.com>]

On Thu, 29 Jun 2000, Ryan Booz wrote:

> The biggest of which is writing an interface to a
> database for out cafeteria so that as students go through the line, the
> lunch lady could have a page called up on the screen that allows her to
> find the student (via number I'm thinking), add items to his/her "bill"
> and have it stored in a database.  So, I'm doing all my studying and was
> thinking of going the old Apache, MySQL, Perl route for creating this
> interface via the browser.  Then I saw the post this week about Zope and
> it looks very interesting.  What are everyone's thoughts on the
> direction I should go?

Well I've been developing in Zope for a year or so now, and I can recommend
it highly. You'll find good support for SQL queries. Alternatively, you
could create a user for each student and save the data there.

> Second is the ever burning question of - what language to I teach?

Well you probably won't be surprised to hear me recommend Python. It's got a
really nice, clean syntax, good OO capabilities (when you get into that),
and it's cross-platform. Most programs run unchanged between Win32 and Linux
in my experience. The other great advantage is the run-time interpretor. It
speeds development greatly by allowing you to experiment in real-time and
try different approaches.

You might be interested to know that the core Python developers are keenly
interested in education. Guido, the original Python author and continuing
benevolent dictator, has a proposal accepted in March 1999 to develop CP4E
(Computer Programming for Everyone). I won't go into detail here. You can
read his proposal at http://www.python.org/doc/essays/cp4e.html

I'm hoping to implement an introductory computer programming course for
20001-02 using Python that would feed into out AP C++ course. Other teachers
have done similar things, most famously Jeffrey Elkner who has published his
experiences at
http://www.python.org/workshops/2000-01/proceedings/papers/elkner/pyYHS.html

Most other resources can be located at:

http://www.python.org/
http://www.pythonlabs.com/

Good luck.

-Tim

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