Why I push for Python

http://lorenabarba.com/blog/why-i-push-for-python/

by kissgyorgy • 12 years ago

91 120 12 years ago

erikb3• 12 years ago

I'm a huge Python fan (90% of my code is Python, work and private), but I don't think any more it's still the language to push. I have not much experience but it seems Go, Ruby, and Scratch seem to be the one's people should be heading towards (which one depends on the level of skill required). But it's really just my feeling, I have no data to proof it.

GuiA2• 12 years ago

Interesting examples you mentioned.

Go, I can understand. But why Ruby? It is just as old as Python, behaves very similarly, and its ecosystem for non-web related tasks pales in comparison. And why Scratch? I really enjoy it (I've taught many workshops to kids 6-14 yo with it) but I would absolutely not use it in anything else but introductory classes.

erikb3• 12 years ago

The reason for Ruby is that more playful things seem to happen in that ecosystem. If you want to push something you want to be at the edge right? And although I believe Python and Ruby are equal in many qualities, Ruby is closer to the edge of where the next development happens. That was the reason behind my decision to add that.

Igglyboo• 12 years ago

I'd have to agree, Go is suited to more intermediate level students and Scratch for extreme beginners and younger children, but Ruby? Ruby is like a harder to read, slower, less used python. Once rails falls(and it is falling) ruby will become a niche language.

im3w1l• 12 years ago

I haven't been following the ruby/rails community much. In what way is rails falling?

bayesianhorse3• 12 years ago

I think Go isn't particularly suited for students at any level. It is a language built for applications that aim to scale extremely well in the cloud, and usually it is being used to replace small parts of a larger infrastructure. Go does not look as inviting for general web development (when runtime speed is not as essential as features) or general programming outside the web/cloud.

Daishiman• 12 years ago

Go is a highly specialized language made for very specific use cases and mind, and still missing features that are essential in many programming domains (dynamic linking and real generics come to mind).

Ruby has no real reason to be if you're already using Python. Nothing wrong with that language (although I consider its programming culture to be inferior in many aspects) but it doesn't really do anything that Python doesn't do, even if it has a few more syntax tricks, which are at best a nice but superficial advantage, at worst another point of confusion and bugs.

Scratch is impractical, and a toy language. Whatever ease of use it has is very quickly surpassed by the need to be productive.

erikb3• 12 years ago

I appreciate your effort to explain in more detail how it actually might be. +1 for that.

csense2• 12 years ago

Go

Requires curly braces and type declarations. These are easy for beginners to screw up.

Ruby

Ruby's syntax makes me want to gouge my eyes out -- it's every bit as bad as Perl. I'm an expert and I hate Ruby. I wouldn't dream of exposing beginning CS students to that crap unless I wanted to convince them to change their major.

Scratch

This is a toy language in a toy environment. I don't know the language well enough to judge its syntax, but the author's goal is "...rather swiftly bringing [students] to a level of skill where they can use computing in their other courses: to analyze data for those lab reports, to learn linear algebra, to solve problems in particle mechanics, problems involving differential equations, maybe even to write a program to control a robot." Scratch doesn't seem well-suited to this role, but there's enough language and library support for Python to be used in all these roles and many more.

jeorgun2• 12 years ago

I feel like you're placing way too much emphasis on syntax here.

From a non-superficial standpoint, you haven't brought up a single thing wrong with Ruby— or Go, aside from explicit typing.

The thing about syntax is that, to some extent, it's subjective. You say Ruby syntax is awful? OK. Personally, when I first started programming, I hated Python syntax¹ so much that I called it quits. It wasn't until later, when I started learning Ruby and its "eye-gouging" syntax, that I could get past that hurdle. So I wouldn't exactly describe its syntax as an argument against using Ruby as a teaching instrument.

¹I've since grown to love it, but as a beginner this was very much not the case.

thu2• 12 years ago

Pushing for Python by comparing it to Java is a first step. But if you really want to do the right choice for all those students, you'd better compare it to other good languages. For instance I'm thinking of Haskell.

Imagine that post being about PHP vs. assembly and thus pushing PHP, or about Java vs assembly and thus pushing Java, or...

jasode• 12 years ago

It looks like the author's audience is applied sciences (MATLAB crowd). Therefore, the author's comparison of Python vs Java is more applicable than Python vs Haskell. This may be due to more "batteries included" in Java and Python ecosystems for scientific computing. The author had 30 existing Java programs to look at for bugs. I can't tell if his/her dataset search would have found 30 student-written Haskell programs.

fearandclothing• 12 years ago

I think the point the author is making is that Python eliminates a lot of overhead in learning fundamental programming concepts. I think it's easier for a beginner to grasp the meaning of something like

  for i in range(0, 3):

than, say,

  for (int i; i < 3; i++)

Haskell is also a great language, but not a great choice for beginners, I think, because it adds a lot of overhead in learning basic programming and CS concepts because of the whole purity thing. I certainly wouldn't try to teach first-year CS students how to implement things like stacks, queues and graphs in Haskell.

thu2• 12 years ago

I don't understand how your "easier for a beginner" example relates to fundamental programming concepts. Are you talking about variable assignments, jumps, control structure, or about syntax ?

Again how is "the whole purity thing" an overhead w.r.t. to learning the fundamentals ?

If you take your loop example in Python, how does leaking the `i` variable outside the loop's scope (actually there is no such scope) a fundamental that beginners need to grasp ?

What would you say about `map f [0..2]` ?

So Python makes a lot of things easier than in C or in Java I get it. That in itself is not an argument for teaching it instead of, say, Haskell.

If you can choose between A, B, ... Z, sure it is better to use B if it is better than A, but not choosing F because you never use it is a wrong reason (at least if your goal is to teach students).

zobzu• 12 years ago

starting with python is ok as long as theres a C class following.

At various work places ive been to, the vast majority of coders know python or ruby or similar languages. They have NO CLUE how the memory is allocated, why some things in python are slower, etc. At some point they go 'its python runtime overhead'. But most of the time they could make the program much faster just by using better data structures in python. Most of the time they don't understand why something doesnt work the way they want and basically pray to get a premade answer on stackoverflow. While they could figure it out much faster by understanding how their machine works.

C has the advantage of being close enough to what the OS does (heck even C isnt always that close with compiler optimizations but - ok). Forces you to understand how the kernel works, how the CPU works, etc. Makes you a better python programmer too.

pabb• 12 years ago

I started typing a really verbose and roundabout answer that really just amounted to this.

I don't even really agree with learning Python first. If you can get over the hurdle that is learning C (or really even just Java), you have the benefit of learning so much more about computing and the fact that types are implicitly being adhered to, memory is being managed beneath the surface, garbage collection, etc. I learned Java for my intro programming course and luckily had an instructor who really emphasized those topics. It made learning C and subsequently assembly much simpler. Had I started in Python, I don't see really learning much more than "wow, I can do some cool things with a computer." I suppose that's okay if the class is advertised as programming for non-CS majors, but to teach Python as an introductory course for CS curriculum seems almost like robbery to me. Jump the initial hurdle of learning the (somewhat) low-level stuff, and then the rest will come easily.

scott_w• 12 years ago

That's a reflection of the skill/desire of the programmer and not their initial introductory language. A naturally curious and intelligent person who wants to get better at their craft is going to learn about this stuff. Some people are happy learning enough to get by, and that's ok. Not everyone is destined to learn everything about their machine down to how disk controllers work.

Personally, I barely learned enough C to even be dangerous, and it's had no negative effects on my work. I have a reasonably good understanding of how Python works at the abstractions that I need to. If I need to learn more, I go figure it out. In truth, the most useful stuff I learn about writing efficient code comes from reading articles/blogs that give medium-level overviews of how a language implements certain features and how it effects your software. Would knowing C help with that? Not in the slightest.

Dewie2• 12 years ago

I learned Java for my intro to programming. Later, I guess 2 years or so later, I began to take an interest into how and why programming languages work. Java throws an error if my index is out of bounds, which means it needs to check it itself, but what would happen if it didn't? What do I need garbage collection for? Why can't the compiler stack-allocate most objects whose references don't escape the scope of the method? How does the runtime know when it has run out of stack space? Does it check it on every new stack frame? Does the stack grow dynamically, or is it allocated ahead of time into one continuous, monolithic chunk? Can an ideal compiler infer the maximum size that the call stack will have at run time (modulo Halting Problem)?

I don't feel that my curiosity was permanently damaged by learning Java. On the other hand, I wouldn't have necessarily have wanted to learn anything about lower-level languages for its own sake, except perhaps only out of some sense of duty that 'every programmer should know this and that'. But since I have an interest in programming languages - which I of course didn't know that I would develop when I was learning my very first programming language - these things became relevant to me later.

anon4• 12 years ago

There are basically two things we call "programming".

One is the specification of a process in algorithmic terms - the abstract, but rigidly defined sequence of transformations on input data into output data. This is a field of mathematics.

Two is the building of a physical system to take input data and produce output data, these days by configuring a complex machine comprised of many different pieces of silicon, each of which takes a string of bits and understands a concrete machine language. We have built a high tower of abstractions, so many different silicon-based computing machines can be programmed the same way without programmers going insane. This is a field of engineering.

You need to teach both. They are two completely different skillsets and a successful developer needs to understand both sides - the mental tools necessary to make algorithms, and the engineering skills necessary to make machines that implement algorithms. You don't start from discrete mathematics and then proceed to trying to bang them inside a computer, nor do you start from silicone and then pretend this is the basis for algorithms.

Both are starting points and you need to approach both as their own thing, not a continuation of the other. To this end, it would be for the best to teach both C and Python at the same time. I find that the two aspects of programming are their own mindsets and things learned in the beginning of each don't really carry over to the other.

And then hope the student can put one and two together.

LyndsySimon• 12 years ago

When I set out to learn Python, I'd had passing experience with Visual Basic, PHP, Javascript and even a bit of Scheme. I understood what programming was all about, but I hadn't yet overcome the initial struggling to translate the logical flow that I had in mind into code.

Now, almost a decade later, I'm still writing Python. Sure, I write my share of Javascript like most people, but Python is my first and true love.

Python is shallow. There isn't a lot to it - once you understand how magic methods work, you're pretty much at the point where reading the source of the implementation is the next step in understanding.

It wasn't long before I found myself learning the specifics of C data types in order to understand exactly how Python types worked.

In short, my contention is that someone who wants to become a better programmer will become a better programmer regardless of their preferred language.

ak217• 12 years ago

One could argue that the defining feature of the Python community and language is the focus on readability and ease of comprehension.

This is why Python wins. It has lower cognitive overhead, and the ecosystem is otherwise good enough to build complex projects.

Though I do wish Guido went with a variable declaration keyword in the beginning. The global/nonlocal stuff sticks out like a sore thumb.

glibgil• 12 years ago

If you want to teach students to deal with inconsistent syntax and slow runtimes then Python is a good choice.

headcanon• 12 years ago

Python was the first language I learned in college, and I have to agree with the OP's opinion on this. While transitioning to C++ in later courses did involve some pain points, I felt like python was a great way to ease into the programmer mindset and get the basic concepts out of the way before delving into the more low-level stuff like pointers, and later with OOP. Not to mention that Python is becoming the Lingua Franca for academic research due to its powerful mathematics packages, and I was immediately able to start programming for money at a university research lab right after I took the class. The realization that I could learn a skill like this and immediately earn money with it was incredibly powerful for me. While there may be "better" languages in terms of teaching programming concepts, the fact that python is so immediately useful in a large number of disciplines relevant to students (at least in a university) still makes it the best language to start learning with right now IMO.

pmelendez2• 12 years ago

"I felt like python was a great way to ease into the programmer mindset and get the basic concepts out of the way before delving into the more low-level stuff like pointers"

My first programming language in college was Scheme and I could use exactly the same words to describe my experience.

derengel2• 12 years ago

PHP would be even more powerful to you ;)

solarmist2• 12 years ago

http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

tracker1• 12 years ago

PHP would be among the worst languages you could throw at somebody learning computer programming concepts. I'm pretty sure this was a joke, just the same.

I was learning to program around the time when php and classic asp were gaining ground (1996)... php had far more to offer for free, but the utter inconsistencies irked me to no end, and still do.

codygman• 12 years ago

How would PHP be even more powerful?

wilsonfiifi• 12 years ago

No doubt Python is a pleasant language to code with (if you don't mind forced indentation of your code). But to be fair this article should compare it to Groovy for instance and probably not Java; doing so would make the push for python a tad more challenging.

I took another look at Groovy again recently (haven't played with it since version 1.8) and i'm beginning to feel that i should have invested more time in learning/adopting it back then. The only drawback for me was the resource requirements of Grails (and the JVM) but now that Linode is giving 2gb ram for $20/mth, the attraction to Groovy is getting stronger lol!

bayesianhorse3• 12 years ago

Python and Java are too commonly taught languages, Groovy is not.

vorg• 12 years ago

Grails adoption share has been falling rapidly lately. It rose on Rails's coattails and it's falling that way too. Other architectures are taking over: vert.x, node.js, Play!

Standalone groovy scripting isn't used as much nowadays either. I suspect Oracle's going to push Nashorn Javascript it shipped with Java 8 for your JVM scripting needs.

Groovy has been getting lots of new users because of Gradle's increasing popularity, though your typical build file is 20 to 100 lines long. Gradle still ships with Groovy 1.8 anyway so you haven't missed out not keeping up!

vezzy-fnord• 12 years ago

I don't necessarily disagree with her reasoning, however the rundown she quotes is unimpressive. It basically amounts to "Python is Turing complete and has libraries," minus the point about it being English-like.

selmnoo• 12 years ago

I think I could have written this article a few months ago, when I was a huge Python fan and would spend a significant amount of time telling my friends in academia to stop using Matlab and start using Python.

Then I started working in a research lab myself, and I haven't used Python since. Very simply, there's an immense amount of code written for Matlab that I can learn from in domain-specific instances, hardware vendors provide Matlab example code (and not Python code), and all of my peers use Matlab. When I have a problem they can usually help me solve it, if I'd been using Python I would've been all by myself and likely unable to finish the task.

And really, these are the most important things to consider when choosing a language. As it stands, Matlab is the right language to choose, at least for me.

bayesianhorse3• 12 years ago

Big existing codebases always hinder language adoption.

But Python is becoming the lingua franca of scientific computing, owing to great open source tool and libraries. Very soon hardware vendors will always provide python example code, python "drivers" or REST-like APIs.

I don't say this lightly, and this statement is hardly ever right, but in this specific instance, Python is clearly the better "language" compared to Matlab, even in scientific computing. The syntax and quirks in Python are more consistent than in Matlab and general programming is a lot easier.

GuiA2• 12 years ago

"Research" is a wide area. I personally used Python in HCI research during all my time in grad school, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

What field are you in, if I may ask?

techtalsky• 12 years ago

Well, also consider the point she's making. So you had to switch to matlab, but you were able to, perhaps partially because you already had a grounding in programming in a language you found pleasurable.

grayclhn5• 12 years ago

I'll make the obligatory "I hope that Julia will replace Matlab in this role soon" statement. But I also hope that infix matrix operations will make Python 3.5 more competitive in this situation too.

neumann• 12 years ago

This is an important point. The right tool for the job has to take into account the existing tools inertia.

Having said that, I had a similar situation at my research lab and have now almost replaced Matlab.

This process was mostly organic, starting with me changing my personal post-processing workflow when I switched to IPython Notebook as a logbook and plotting library (i still use gnuplot occasionaly).

Soon I started having to port bits of Matlab and C code to Python and Cython to allow me to continue using the logbook, and I found I was becoming a lot faster at creating new modules and tools, mainly because the programming component was now intricately linked to my workflow (and more fun)

The tipping point was when I converted a notebook into a slideshow for a presentation I had to do for the group. Everybody was more interested in how I made the presentation then in my results, and wanted access to the new tools. I provided them with the git repo (and git tutorial), gave people notebooks I had written to log coding practices and demos of my code (I have poor memory) and encouraged people to contribute back.

Getting people to contribute back is still the hardwork: Everyone is shy to share their code, but the Professors starting preferring IPython Notebooks. New code is now usually written in Python first, and sometimes ported to Matlab and even the hardcore Matlab researchers are starting to show interest because of the speed and flexibility of the new code.

Basically, I found Matlab is definitely replaceable - and can only improve workflow (speed it up if nothing else). There are a few instances when specific hardware requires Win driver access through a Matlab plugin, but there are ways to interface with these too.

edanm• 12 years ago

Python is easier for students to learn.

Learning something new is hard, and Python is easier for students to learn.

Really, the ease of learning should trump almost everything else. Especially since Python is actually used in the real world, so it's immediately applicable.

You want students to know more concepts they won't get from just Python? I agree with you. Just not as a first language.

_random_• 12 years ago

It's very good for beginners. Just remember to move on later.

Cakez0r4• 12 years ago

It seems the only argument for pushing Python is that it sidesteps the need to understand fundamental programming concepts. Sure Python is easy to read and easy to write, but that's not really the point. To teach somebody print "hello world" in Python is not really teaching them much at all... Teaching someone the C equivalent would cover functions ("what is 'void main()'?"), entry points and how programs are loaded by the OS ("why do I need void main"), libraries ("what is cout and where did it come from? iostream!", "what else does iostream have?"), operators ("if cout is a function, what is this << thing?"), etc... The verbosity is helpful because it allows the student to ask questions that lead to a more holistic understanding of computer science. If a student with no programming knowledge asked me about how print worked in python, it'd be hard to know where to start explaining!

possibilistic• 12 years ago

Why do you have to teach them the boring stuff first? The point is to get them interested in programming. They can learn how the hardware, compilation, linking, and algorithms work later.

Above all, get them interested. If you capture their imagination, they'll be receptive to--even independently curious about--the details.

I'm speaking anecdotally now, but please do not bore young students. There's no way I would have stuck with it if C was my first language. Javascript and Python are excellent starting points that easily let kids create games and websites and fun things.

We probably wouldn't start someone off with Haskell, but to me C seems on the same level of impracticality for a young beginner.

Cakez0r4• 12 years ago

Well if somebody is in higher education for computer science, I'm assuming their imagination has already been captured. I'm all for using whatever has the lowest barrier to entry in order to get young people interested in programming.

nightski2• 12 years ago

Sorry but hardware, compilation, linking, and algorithms are anything but boring. Even as a beginner I was very intrigued by all of them, even if I did not understand them as well.

solipsism• 12 years ago

Programming languages are tools that are useful to many more disciplines than just computer science.

lbarrow2• 12 years ago

This is like saying that when teaching people how to cook, you should start with chemistry lessons. Sure, at some point you have to have some understanding of chemistry in cooking, but does that really mean you have to start out there?

Yes, every programmer should eventually learn about the things you're talking about. But C is a terrible first language.

Cakez0r4• 12 years ago

I would disagree that you need an understanding of chemistry to cook... (although it doesn't hurt). However, if you want to teach somebody to cook, you don't teach them how to use the microwave :)

grayclhn5• 12 years ago

I was about to disagree with this criticism of C, since I loved it as the introductory language in college. But then I remembered that Basic was my first programming language, and Pascal was the first language I was actually taught, and I'd been programming for a long time before actually getting to college.

So I totally agree. Python probably makes sense if most undergraduates don't have programming experience any more. And the ones that do probably have experience in JavaScript.

antoinec• 12 years ago

I think it all depends of your goals, if you learn to cook in order to impress your friends, no you probably don't need chemistry lessons, but if you plan to win 3 Michelin stars for your restaurant, you probably need to. Same for programmation, if you just want to ease your work, compute quickly some math formulas, etc, you can start with Python. But if you plan to write the next big OS, you better start with C...

lomnakkus• 12 years ago

Given actual practical experience of e.g. Software Carpentry that's an absurd view. You actually do not need to know how "print" is accomplished. Print is not a leaky abstraction unless you go into what is (these days) an absurd scenario like a serial console.

cgag3• 12 years ago

Instead of teaching them about function composition, recursion, data abstraction, and all the interesting concepts of computer science you end up teaching them a bunch of incidental stuff about memory locations and syntax.

Python suffers from this less than C, but still much more than Scheme. I really can't imagine advocating for something other than some dialect of scheme (maybe racket) for an intro undergraduate course.

For kids I can see choosing something like Javascript (as terrible as it is) just for the immediate feedback that someone before me mentioned.

icebraining3• 12 years ago

Memory locations? In Python? I don't even know what you're saying.

na855• 12 years ago

These aren't computer science students. Most of them won't find recursion and data abstraction interesting in the slightest. If their primary interests were in computer science I'm sure they would have gone into a comp sci program.

These students are there to learn programming as a tool to help them solve problems. The elegant recursive algorithm isn't really a goal they have. Their goal is to get a reasonable answer to a problem so they can move on with more important things.

na855• 12 years ago

Sure Python is easy to read and easy to write, but that's not really the point.

That is the point. This isn't for comp. sci. students, this is for engineering students.

I know that in America, unlike other countries, "engineer" is a non-protected term and that lots of guys who don't actually have engineering degrees (such as comp sci majors) call themselves engineers.

But "actual" Engineers, i.e. the people who have engineering degrees or are in engineering programs, the people to whom this article pertains, are applied scientists. By definition, their professional concerns aren't the inner workings, or developing a holistic understanding of computers. That's for a specialist, i.e. a computer scientist who has more appropriate training. An engineer's job is to develop a solution that surpasses the design requirements (physical as well as budgetary) by the minimum amount. As a crude example, anyone with a high school education could, with unlimited funds, build a bridge that would stand up. But only a trained structural engineer can build a bridge that will just stand up.

I'm a mechanical engineer, and for people in my field the programming aspect is most often a means to and end; you're writing a simulation to give you better insight into solving a physical problem, or you're writing a program to crunch a shitload of data, or you need to plot things and present them in a particular way or output the results to a particular tool, etc. The performance of the algorithm or your code is not really paramount. If it's "good enough" then it's good enough, because the code you write is just another tool in your toolbox along with your digital multimeter, your impact driver and your wrench.

I recently wrote a quick one-off to iteratively determine the asymptotic limit of a set of physical functions with many interconnections and shared variables, subject to 4 different constraints and involving numerous irritating physical constants.

To write that program successfully, I don't have any need whatsoever to understand the intricacies of file IO, the specifics of how libraries are linked at compile time, or how the print function actually prints to the screen. All I need is for it to print a number to the console so I can compare it to my far rougher hand calculations. Anything else is a waste of my time.

Had I written that one-off in python, the knowledge that "print prints things to the console" would be perfectly adequate for me to do what I need to do in order to move on to more important things. The inner details just aren't important.

zo1• 12 years ago

You have quite a few muddled definitions that you trip yourself over in your post. First you say that you're an engineer, which means you're an "applied scientist". Then afterwards you go on to claim that computer scientists aren't really "engineers" by your definition. Then further down you go on and say that they're instead "specialists". Sounds like you just had to find another word other than "Engineer" there, so you picked specialist.

Then again... You mention that the job of an "engineer" is to "develop a solution". Well, that's pretty much what a software developer or software engineer would do. They're all grey, and it sounds like you're not quite sure of your own definitions. I can't tell if you're just confused about what all these terms mean to you, or you're just hurriedly trying to justify your own internal view of superiority over "non-engineers" because you're a "mechanical engineer" and don't like being on the same plane as them.

All in all, I should probably disclose that I've had this argument a few times with "engineers" in the physical sciences. They all had a vested interest in protecting the term engineer because if they didn't, it would devalue their worth and the degree they hold. And the government-body given "accreditation" that they lord over people for higher pay.

j2kun2• 12 years ago

What makes 'void main()' fundamental to programming? And the syntactic sugar of cout and operator overloading? Come on. If there's anything fundamental about programming it's not the particular design choices made in your favorite language. What makes Python good is that it allows one to focus on learning to translate ideas into programs before having to deal with all the other junk that goes into programming in other languages.

analog31• 12 years ago

I wonder if there are differing schools of thought as to what are the fundamental programming concepts. Is it more fundamental to expose students to, or isolate them from, the innards of the computer, when they are first learning to program? Short of settling that issue, the next best thing might be to expose students to at least a couple of different approaches. Python and C would be my choices. I'd teach C on a microcontroller target.

Some isolation is necessary. I doubt that I could completely explain how either print or printf turns the pixels on and off on the display.

rat87• 12 years ago

note: void main should be int main(at least in c++)

You could just give

    from __future__ import print_function
    import os
    def main():
        print("hello world from:" + os.name)
    if __name__ == "__main__":
        main()

as the hello world that covers functions(main/print), entry points(python runs the code top to bottom defining classes and functions at the top level and running any other code it encounters, to allow importation of libraries we put the code we wish to run in a special block that only runs it when the script is the only being directly run, not imported), we imported os and used os.name to demonstrate a library, + is an operator.

MarcScott3• 12 years ago

I teach 11 to 18 year olds and I've stopped teaching them Python and started teaching them JavaScript.

My main reason for the switch is to overcome the "What's the point of this?" questions that I used to receive. With JavaScript the kids instantly see a result on a platform they're familiar with - a browser. window.alert() is instantly recognisable to them and seems far more relevant than print"" where the output is only visible in a terminal or IDE.

Cakez0r4• 12 years ago

I think that's fine to whet a young adult's appetite, but in higher education, "Why?" should be an ally, not an enemy.

jtuple• 12 years ago

My main problem with Javascript is the various truthiness rules as well as the numerous implicit conversions to strings.

Eg. > [2,1,3,10,6, 200].sort()

[1, 10, 2, 200, 3, 6]

is both unexpected, and is just one of many landmines that can completely derail beginners.

rectangletangle4• 12 years ago

JavaScript has numerous caveats and idiosyncrasies that result in strange and unexpected behavior. It's scoping rules are also pretty broken. While Python does have some of its own quirks, they're far fewer in number. There are two that bite people pretty often, using a mutable type as a default function parameter, and accidentally typing a comma after an expression subtly converting it to a tuple.

notduncansmith• 12 years ago

This may be an unpopular opinion (certainly contrary to what the majority of publications on the web would have one believe) but I wouldn't consider Javascript a beginner's programming language.

C was hard for some kids to grasp in my high school class, but I didn't struggle with it, and it certainly taught me rigor and attention to detail. Ruby (on and off Rails) helped me build things without getting bogged down in syntax; the LOC-to-output ratio was quite gratifying. Only later did I progress to writing non-trivial Javascript.

While it's an incredibly powerful language (when I hear people describe the "enlightenment" of developing in Lisp, I'm often reminded of JS), it has a lot of warts that, as you rightly stated, can throw beginners for a loop. I imagine that if I had encountered the example you described above at the beginning of my career, I would have decided that Javascript is for the birds and resolved to just write C/C++ for the rest of my life.

jonkelly• 12 years ago

I'm just starting out teaching my daughter (10). Any recommendations on how best to get her started with JS?

MarcScott3• 12 years ago

Here's what I'm using with my Year 7s (11yo) at the moment. It still needs lots of work and is not at all a finished project.

http://marcscott.github.io/7-WD-JS/

I'm sure there are better offerings out there though.

grayclhn5• 12 years ago

It's not javascript, but my daughter loves Logo. She's a little younger than 10, so it's still off and on and a lot of parental involvement.

mercer2• 12 years ago

I've also found that most people who were curious about programming got very excited when I showed them the dev tools of browsers. For at least one it triggered a love of programming.

One option to make js a little easier to start with is to install a CoffeeScript plugin. Not sure if it's a good idea, but it's an option.

Also, one nice side-effect of getting them started on javascript is that learning another language (ruby or python, perhaps), is a wonderful next step because suddenly you're using a much 'friendlier' language! Whereas if you start with that, having to deal with js can be frustrating.

zenbowman• 12 years ago

I teach kids in that age as well, and I start out with Python + Pygame.

For an undergraduate level course I would prefer teaching Scheme or C in an introductory class.

hetid• 12 years ago

Why do people advocate Python and not a dialect of Lisp for beginners? Are prefix notation and parentheses really that terrible in exchange for a completely unified syntax?

hcarvalhoalves• 12 years ago

I believe Lisp is a good choice for beginners too, but it's two different approaches. Lisp is interesting for the theory behind it - you can introduce lambda calculus, parsers, AST, stacks while you teach the language, and the student will have a grasp of how the computer understands code. Python is a more hands-on approach - you just teach some syntax that reads like english and the student can put some libraries together and do something meaningful, the barrier is low and you get instant gratification, which is important to keep students motivated.

bjt2• 12 years ago

When you show someone a mathematical formula using standard infix notation, and then want them to write a program to implement it, it's immensely helpful if the syntax of the language is close to the mathematical notation. Infix operators are a huge boon to readability for beginning programmers, especially those with some science/math background.

This is the subject of some extended discussion in the new PEP proposing a Python infix operator for matrix multiplication. http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0465/

rjf1990• 12 years ago

Agree with this article 100%. The reason I discarded programming (and went into Mechanical Engineering)sophomore year of college was because I was frustrated with the syntax issues with C++. Years later, once I learned Python, I started experimenting with other languages and learned to deal with the syntax. Syntax isn't a big deal for people who are used to it, but for people who are deciding whether to be interested in programming or not, syntax can but a huge turn-off.

wting• 12 years ago

If I had to overly generalize, programmers tend to fall into the "builder" and "curiosity" camps.

I grew up using a Borland C++ compiler that didn't list which line numbers were missing semi-colons. I didn't mind going over my code to find the missing semi-colon, but plenty of my classmates were frustrated. They weren't interested in how compilers worked, how code was parsed and debugging information was lost in the transition. They just wanted to build a game, a web site, something.

At college I had a difficult time with Scheme and looked down at it. Where's the manual memory management? The pointers? The for loops? Scheme abstracted away a lot of plumbing and let users focus on algorithms.

Nowadays I think Python is the ideal first language followed by C and Haskell. It's starting in the middle, and then moving towards opposite ends of the programming spectrum: systems and functional programming.

Some make the argument that CS students should be dedicated enough to plow through an introductory course taught in Java / C++. I think that's an elitist attitude. CS is not growing in popularity despite increased demand[0], and new students should be welcomed instead of facing artificial filtering measures like "dedication". At the same time, this is not a proposal to water down the major--just a plea to ease students in instead of kicking them off a cliff and hoping they can fly.

Edit: Another front page article (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7760790) discusses this issue:

One might also argue that these tools are simple enough once you learn to use them. I would only point out that, emperically, that bar is too high. Despite the clear benefits, the vast majority of the world was chosen to remain illiterate. Even tools for which there is a clear need (eg version control) have largely failed to make a dent. Clearly there is a need for a less hostile programming environment.

[0] http://www.itworld.com/big-data/418701/american-college-stud...

cpeterso• 12 years ago

Nowadays I think Python is the ideal first language followed by C and Haskell. It's starting in the middle, and then moving towards opposite ends of the programming spectrum: systems and functional programming.

I agree. My friend studied CS at UC Berkeley where (at the time?) first semester was Scheme, second semester was assembly language, and then subsequent classwork was usually C++ or Java.

revelation• 12 years ago

The dedication filter is much of the value the college experience provides. As many people would argue, a degree in CS doesn't actually teach you marketable or relevant skills to a sufficient degree.

rwallace• 12 years ago

When teaching young children, 'to ease students in' is a good idea. But for first-year college students, it's the worst thing you can do to them. The ones who chose the right course will be okay either way, but the ones who chose the wrong course won't get to find out until it's too late to switch, at least not without having wasted a nontrivial chunk of their lives. The overriding criterion for a first-year college programming language is to have a difficult learning curve to give students accurate information as early as possible about the nature of the subject they've signed up for.

increment_i• 12 years ago

Isn't python basically the defacto OO language in undergrad CS courses today? Every CS student I've ever met did their intro courses using python. Later years would delve into C and MATLAB.

Orangeair• 12 years ago

I agree, with reservations. Python is great for introducing people to programming; however, it is not necessarily great for teaching computer science concepts.

My 200 level data structures and algorithms class was taught in Python, and it just felt awkward. For example, we constructed an "array" by basically creating an abstraction on top of a list, which did nothing but remove features and introduce overhead. It kind of felt like teaching someone how to make a bike by taking all four wheels off of a car and only putting two back.

Why I push for Python

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