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Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language

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  Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-12-11 19:43 +1100
    Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2013-12-11 01:39 -0800
      Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-12-11 10:05 +0000
      Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-12-11 21:45 +1100
        Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language alex23 <wuwei23@gmail.com> - 2013-12-12 15:38 +1000
        Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2013-12-12 01:17 -0800
          Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-12-12 21:28 +1100
            Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2013-12-12 06:34 -0800
              Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-12-13 01:47 +1100
                Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2013-12-12 08:20 -0800
                  Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Ned Batchelder <ned@nedbatchelder.com> - 2013-12-12 11:58 -0500
              Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-12-12 15:01 +0000
          Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Ned Batchelder <ned@nedbatchelder.com> - 2013-12-12 08:52 -0500
          Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-12-12 14:30 +0000
          Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2013-12-12 12:55 -0500
            Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2013-12-13 08:15 -0800
              Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-12-14 03:27 +1100
                Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2013-12-13 10:27 -0800
                  Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-12-14 05:32 +1100
                    Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2013-12-13 11:30 -0800
              Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-12-13 16:39 +0000
              Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-12-14 03:43 +1100
                Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2013-12-13 08:54 -0800
                  Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-12-14 03:57 +1100
              Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-12-13 17:02 +0000
              Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2013-12-13 17:49 -0500
                Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2013-12-14 09:58 +0000
              Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-12-13 23:10 +0000
              Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2013-12-13 18:30 -0500
                Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2013-12-14 06:03 -0800
                  Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-12-15 01:15 +1100
                  Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-12-14 14:38 +0000
                  CP65001 fails (was re: ...) Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2013-12-14 13:43 -0500
                    Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...) wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2013-12-14 12:48 -0800
                      Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...) Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-12-14 21:05 +0000
                        Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...) Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2013-12-14 22:51 +0000
                          Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...) Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-12-14 23:32 +0000
                          Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...) rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2013-12-14 20:42 -0800
                            Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...) Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2013-12-15 05:00 +0000
                              Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...) rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2013-12-14 21:24 -0800
                            Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-12-15 15:48 +1100
                            Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...) Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-12-15 14:25 +0000
                    Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...) Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2013-12-15 02:39 +0000
                      Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...) Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2013-12-15 00:07 -0500
                        Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...) wxjmfauth@gmail.com - 2013-12-15 00:26 -0800
              Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-12-14 10:38 +1100
              Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2013-12-13 15:17 -0800
              Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-12-13 23:58 +0000
                Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2013-12-14 10:00 +0000
                  Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-12-14 13:21 +0000
      Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Steve Simmons <square.steve@gmail.com> - 2013-12-11 12:33 +0100
      Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-12-11 23:02 +1100
      Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Steve Simmons <square.steve@gmail.com> - 2013-12-11 13:30 +0100
    Re: Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2013-12-11 11:17 +0000

Page 3 of 3 — ← Prev page 1 2 [3]

#61936 — Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...)

On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 3:42 PM, rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> wrote:
> To me all this GG complaining sounds like some elderly mom-pop-uncle
> who weeps/coaxes/moans/pleads/grumbles/ about a fused light bulb,
> rather than climbing on a stool and changing the bloody thing.

No, it's like moaning about Foo Brand light bulbs that die after two
weeks, when there are perfectly good light bulbs that last for years
if you'll just use a different brand. And there are people who say
"But Foo Brand light bulbs are easy, you just go up on a ladder every
time you want to turn it on and make sure there's a good bulb in it!".

ChrisA

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#61944 — Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...)

On 15/12/2013 04:48, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 3:42 PM, rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> wrote:
>> To me all this GG complaining sounds like some elderly mom-pop-uncle
>> who weeps/coaxes/moans/pleads/grumbles/ about a fused light bulb,
>> rather than climbing on a stool and changing the bloody thing.
>
> No, it's like moaning about Foo Brand light bulbs that die after two
> weeks, when there are perfectly good light bulbs that last for years
> if you'll just use a different brand. And there are people who say
> "But Foo Brand light bulbs are easy, you just go up on a ladder every
> time you want to turn it on and make sure there's a good bulb in it!".
>
> ChrisA
>

On this count I observe that on 15/12/2013 GMT at 08:26 the cows still 
haven't come home :)

-- 
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask 
what you can do for our language.

Mark Lawrence

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#61927 — Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...)

On Sat, 14 Dec 2013 13:43:41 -0500, Terry Reedy wrote:

> This was reported by Victor Stinner as part of
> http://bugs.python.org/issue19914
> to explain how cp65001 causes behavior like this with Python's
> interactive help() function (which more for paging on Windows).
> 
>  >>> help(str)
> Not enough memory.


Terry, I see you have closed the bug report. I think you were a little 
hasty. The ultimate cause of the bug may be the failure of Window's 
"more" command when the code-page is set to CP-65001, but that doesn't 
necessarily imply that Python shouldn't, or can't, do something about it.

The interactive help system already supports different pagers, depending 
on the environment. I think that it could fall back on a more primitive 
pager if the preferred one fails. The relevant code is the pager() and 
getpager() functions in the pydoc module. The patch won't be trivial, but 
I think it can be done, and I think it should be done. Although possibly 
for Python 3.5 rather than a bug-fix version. Your thoughts?



-- 
Steven

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#61935 — Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...)

On 12/14/2013 9:39 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Sat, 14 Dec 2013 13:43:41 -0500, Terry Reedy wrote:
>
>> This was reported by Victor Stinner as part of
>> http://bugs.python.org/issue19914
>> to explain how cp65001 causes behavior like this with Python's
>> interactive help() function (which more for paging on Windows).
>>
>>   >>> help(str)
>> Not enough memory.
>
>
> Terry, I see you have closed the bug report. I think you were a little
> hasty.

I might have been premature, but I was not hasty. I read the SO reports 
and though about it for an hour or so while looking at other issues. I 
did not see any use to leaving it open as I did not see any realistic 
propect of a useful and acceptible patch to Python. The OP himself said 
that i/o did not work with 65001 and that not using it fixed his issue.

> The ultimate cause of the bug may be the failure of Window's
> "more" command when the code-page is set to CP-65001, but that doesn't
> necessarily imply that Python shouldn't, or can't, do something about it.

I believe running Python on Windows with cp=65001 falls in the category 
of "Don't do that". This is based on my experiences and the reported 
experience of other developers who have tried and failed to make it 
work, reinforced by the SO thread and a couple of other web pages.

> The interactive help system already supports different pagers, depending
> on the environment. I think that it could fall back on a more primitive
> pager if the preferred one fails.

Do you know if 'more' actually signals failure?
Do you know if there are any other situations in which a pager fails?

> The relevant code is the pager() and
> getpager() functions in the pydoc module. The patch won't be trivial, but
> I think it can be done, and I think it should be done. Although possibly
> for Python 3.5 rather than a bug-fix version. Your thoughts?

My thought is that if the only situation in which a pager fails is one 
that one should not use, because other things will also fail, then a 
patch would not be worth the bother.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy

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#61941 — Re: CP65001 fails (was re: ...)

Le dimanche 15 décembre 2013 06:07:09 UTC+1, Terry Reedy a écrit :
> On 12/14/2013 9:39 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, 14 Dec 2013 13:43:41 -0500, Terry Reedy wrote:
> 
> >
> 
> >> This was reported by Victor Stinner as part of
> 
> >> http://bugs.python.org/issue19914
> 
> >> to explain how cp65001 causes behavior like this with Python's
> 
> >> interactive help() function (which more for paging on Windows).
> 
> >>
> 
> >>   >>> help(str)
> 
> >> Not enough memory.
> 
> >
> 
> >
> 
> > Terry, I see you have closed the bug report. I think you were a little
> 
> > hasty.
> 
> 
> 
> I might have been premature, but I was not hasty. I read the SO reports 
> 
> and though about it for an hour or so while looking at other issues. I 
> 
> did not see any use to leaving it open as I did not see any realistic 
> 
> propect of a useful and acceptible patch to Python. The OP himself said 
> 
> that i/o did not work with 65001 and that not using it fixed his issue.
> 
> 
> 
> > The ultimate cause of the bug may be the failure of Window's
> 
> > "more" command when the code-page is set to CP-65001, but that doesn't
> 
> > necessarily imply that Python shouldn't, or can't, do something about it.
> 
> 
> 
> I believe running Python on Windows with cp=65001 falls in the category 
> 
> of "Don't do that". This is based on my experiences and the reported 
> 
> experience of other developers who have tried and failed to make it 
> 
> work, reinforced by the SO thread and a couple of other web pages.
> 
> 
> 
> > The interactive help system already supports different pagers, depending
> 
> > on the environment. I think that it could fall back on a more primitive
> 
> > pager if the preferred one fails.
> 
> 
> 
> Do you know if 'more' actually signals failure?
> 
> Do you know if there are any other situations in which a pager fails?
> 
> 
> 
> > The relevant code is the pager() and
> 
> > getpager() functions in the pydoc module. The patch won't be trivial, but
> 
> > I think it can be done, and I think it should be done. Although possibly
> 
> > for Python 3.5 rather than a bug-fix version. Your thoughts?
> 
> 
> 
> My thought is that if the only situation in which a pager fails is one 
> 
> that one should not use, because other things will also fail, then a 
> 
> patch would not be worth the bother.
> 
> 


If I'm understanding a little bit about coding of
characters, fonts, chars "inputing", I should say
I never really understood how all this stuff is
arranged. (I never found a real explanation too).


There is something, which may be very deeply bound to
the system (kernel ?). As an example, entering a
char with Alt+0XXX always works accordingly to my (the?)
localized windows version. Entering a char with
Alt+XXX (not the missing 0) uses the OEM (bios?)
encoding.

jmf

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#61870

On Sat, Dec 14, 2013 at 10:30 AM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> wrote:
> Chris, I hardly think Jim's last statement (which I presume is your target)
> is egregious enough to start another junk subthread of 9 (now 10) posts.
> Certainly '[citation needed]' is a pretty senseless comment. 'Citation' to
> what, for what? It is well-known that Windows uses 2-byte words for unicode
> coding. If you want a citation for that fact, find it yourself.
>
> What is not clear to me is whether Windows internally uses UCS-2, which only
> codes BMP chars, and which would *not* be excellent, or UTF-16, which covers
> all chars by using surrogates. I will guess the latter. More to the point,
> even if MS uses a complete coding scheme internally (UFT-16), it does not,
> as far as I know, make it fully available and usable to *me*, as I showed in
> my response about code page 65001.

And what I'm more asking for is a clarification on how Win 7 is
different from the previous Windowses. I know a lot did change from XP
to 7 (I don't care which side of Vista the change happened, let's just
compare the popular Windows with the popular Windows here), but I
wasn't aware that anything to do with Unicode had changed there. Since
jmf made the assertion in words which implied that Microsoft had now
*and only now* produced such a system, I asked for a citation.

ChrisA

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#61871

On 12/13/2013 03:10 PM, Mark Lawrence wrote:
>
> Seems like we're now in the later stages of the 15, three minute rounds.  The trainer won't throw in the towel, the
> referee won't stop the fight and the boxer himself won't quit.  Is jmf actually trying to get himself killed?

His credibility with me has been long dead.  :(

--
~Ethan~

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#61872

On 13/12/2013 23:17, Ethan Furman wrote:
> On 12/13/2013 03:10 PM, Mark Lawrence wrote:
>>
>> Seems like we're now in the later stages of the 15, three minute
>> rounds.  The trainer won't throw in the towel, the
>> referee won't stop the fight and the boxer himself won't quit.  Is jmf
>> actually trying to get himself killed?
>
> His credibility with me has been long dead.  :(
>
> --
> ~Ethan~

With me it never lived, we've simply had to put up with his FUD for 16 
months.

-- 
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask 
what you can do for our language.

Mark Lawrence

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#61887

On Fri, 13 Dec 2013 23:58:14 +0000, Mark Lawrence wrote:

> On 13/12/2013 23:17, Ethan Furman wrote:
>> On 12/13/2013 03:10 PM, Mark Lawrence wrote:
>>>
>>> Seems like we're now in the later stages of the 15, three minute
>>> rounds.  The trainer won't throw in the towel, the referee won't stop
>>> the fight and the boxer himself won't quit.  Is jmf actually trying to
>>> get himself killed?
>>
>> His credibility with me has been long dead.  :(
>>
>> --
>> ~Ethan~
> 
> With me it never lived, we've simply had to put up with his FUD for 16
> months.

Mark, do you really mean to say that you were prejudiced against JMF 
before he even write a word here?

Strange thing to say, since he did actually identify a real performance 
regression, even if he has since become obsessed with demonstrating that 
a micro-performance slowdown means that Python is mathematically and 
logically broken.



-- 
Steven

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#61894

On 14/12/2013 10:00, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Dec 2013 23:58:14 +0000, Mark Lawrence wrote:
>
>> On 13/12/2013 23:17, Ethan Furman wrote:
>>> On 12/13/2013 03:10 PM, Mark Lawrence wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Seems like we're now in the later stages of the 15, three minute
>>>> rounds.  The trainer won't throw in the towel, the referee won't stop
>>>> the fight and the boxer himself won't quit.  Is jmf actually trying to
>>>> get himself killed?
>>>
>>> His credibility with me has been long dead.  :(
>>>
>>> --
>>> ~Ethan~
>>
>> With me it never lived, we've simply had to put up with his FUD for 16
>> months.
>
> Mark, do you really mean to say that you were prejudiced against JMF
> before he even write a word here?
>
> Strange thing to say, since he did actually identify a real performance
> regression, even if he has since become obsessed with demonstrating that
> a micro-performance slowdown means that Python is mathematically and
> logically broken.
>

IIRC he first started spreading his rubbish sometime in August 2012, I 
make that around 16 months, what does your maths skills make it?  He 
also identified a problem in an edge case that stood out like a sore 
thumb when compared to real world cases.  Big deal.

-- 
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask 
what you can do for our language.

Mark Lawrence

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#61550

On 11/12/2013 11:45, Chris Angelico wrote:
> And then, shortly after the beginning of the story, you need to
> introduce the villain. Thanks, jmf, for taking that position in our
> role-play storytelling scenario! A round of applause for jmf, folks,
> for doing a brilliant impression of the uninformed-yet-fanatical
> Knight Templar villain!
>
> ChrisA

Oi! You!!

I'll have you know I'm a bona fide Knight of the Temple and we're not 
(all) villains!
If I catch you calling us villains again, I'll slide up behind you in 
the mud and dig you
with my ceremonial sword!  ;-)

SteveS

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#61556

On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 10:33 PM, Steve Simmons <square.steve@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/12/2013 11:45, Chris Angelico wrote:
>>
>> And then, shortly after the beginning of the story, you need to
>> introduce the villain. Thanks, jmf, for taking that position in our
>> role-play storytelling scenario! A round of applause for jmf, folks,
>> for doing a brilliant impression of the uninformed-yet-fanatical
>> Knight Templar villain!
>>
>> ChrisA
>
>
> Oi! You!!
>
> I'll have you know I'm a bona fide Knight of the Temple and we're not (all)
> villains!
> If I catch you calling us villains again, I'll slide up behind you in the
> mud and dig you
> with my ceremonial sword!  ;-)

Mister Simmons, Mister Simmons! We are not for one moment doubting
your sincerity. It's just your intelligence that's in question. [1]

[1] http://www.thegoonshow.net/scripts_show.asp?title=s06e19_the_jet_propelled_guided_naafi

ChrisA
Attempting to atone for pointing people to TVTropes... or maybe to be
hung for a sheep rather than a lamb....

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#61561

On 11/12/2013 13:02, Chris Angelico wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 10:33 PM, Steve Simmons <square.steve@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 11/12/2013 11:45, Chris Angelico wrote:
>>> And then, shortly after the beginning of the story, you need to
>>> introduce the villain. Thanks, jmf, for taking that position in our
>>> role-play storytelling scenario! A round of applause for jmf, folks,
>>> for doing a brilliant impression of the uninformed-yet-fanatical
>>> Knight Templar villain!
>>>
>>> ChrisA
>>
>> Oi! You!!
>>
>> I'll have you know I'm a bona fide Knight of the Temple and we're not (all)
>> villains!
>> If I catch you calling us villains again, I'll slide up behind you in the
>> mud and dig you
>> with my ceremonial sword!  ;-)
> Mister Simmons, Mister Simmons! We are not for one moment doubting
> your sincerity. It's just your intelligence that's in question. [1]
>
> [1] http://www.thegoonshow.net/scripts_show.asp?title=s06e19_the_jet_propelled_guided_naafi
>
> ChrisA
> Attempting to atone for pointing people to TVTropes... or maybe to be
> hung for a sheep rather than a lamb....
OK, We'll call it a draw. [2 - or is that 1?]

SteveS

[2 - or is that 3?  Three shall be the number...] 
http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Holy_Grail/Scene4.htm

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#61549

On Wed, 11 Dec 2013 19:43:52 +1100, Chris Angelico wrote:

> [1] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InMediasRes

TV Tropes? You utter, utter bastard.

Must... resist... call... of... TV Tropes...



-- 
Steven

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