[Python-il] Python/OSS education

[guy keren]

Rani Hod wrote:
>     Though I'd say that Scheme is pretty good too, from what I've heard.
>     (I've never tried it myself.) If I understand correctly, it's much
>     less commonplace than Python in the industry, but at least it's a
>     high-level language which encourages good thinking, much more so
>     than C++ or Pascal.

(hey, i didn't write that - cool-RR did ;) i do not agree with this 
point, but that's besides the point).

> 
> 
> As I see it, the only two real life uses for lisp are:
> 1) customizing your emacs
> 2) Abuse <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_(video_game)>
>  
> 
>     I'm saying that because I try to be careful not to be too dogmatic
>     on Python. It's my favorite language, but I try not to forget that
>     there are other great languages too.

(likewise)

> 
> Right. And this is not a course about any specific language. It just 
> happens to use Python.
>  
>     One thing of importance: one of the problems with high-level
>     languages, is that they hide efficiency issues very well - e.g.
>     people start using lists, dictionaries and such, with little
>     awareness to what goes under the hood - and as a result don't get
>     the feel for how efficient (or not) some of the data structures are.
> 
>     are you going to tackle this issue in this course? i got a feeling
>     you won't be using python in the data structures course - and many
>     people may miss the connection.
> 
>  
> It is the very first hands-on course that CS students take, often 1st 
> year, 1st semester.
> It is not a course about data structures, complexity, algorithms, 
> software design, or even software development.
> They'll see some of it throughout the degree (and they still won't be 
> great programmers without practice) but the focus of our course is 
> elsewhere.

i know it's the first course. as far as i remember, in the technion's 
first course, they mention the idea of complexity at some point and talk 
about it a little - even thought it's dealt with more seriously in the 
data structures course and in the computation theory course. don't you 
mention it at all during this course?

--guy