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PythonMonk – Learn Python in the browser

pythonmonk.com

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Re: PythonMonk – Learn Python in the browser

#11

Post by lawnchair_larry »

pekk wrote: post #8
metaphorm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while I agree that we should be more proactive about migrating to Python 3, if you're trying to be pragmatic it is most useful to teach Python 2.7 since that is the most widely used version.

Python 3, in 2013, is not lacking in pragmatism. It's not new, or experimental. Someone just learning today is going to have to immediately turn around and relearn things because they started out with an old version.

Clearly you are not a python developer. This isn't correct at all. First, there is nearly nothing to relearn if you target 2.7.

http://docs.python.org/3/howto/pyporting.html#use-same-sourc...

Second, most software of any complexity will have dependencies. Although progress has been made, several packages that many projects depend upon are still red:

http://python3wos.appspot.com/

Re: PythonMonk – Learn Python in the browser

#12

Post by emidln »

jace wrote: post #10
pekk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Python 3, in 2013, is not lacking in pragmatism. It's not new, or experimental. Someone just learning today is going to have to immediately turn around and relearn things because they started out with an old version.

I don't know anyone who uses Python 3 in production. It's still seen as an experimental implementation.

I've seen more installs of pypy in production than python3.

Re: PythonMonk – Learn Python in the browser

#13

Post by reinhardt »

pekk wrote: post #8
metaphorm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while I agree that we should be more proactive about migrating to Python 3, if you're trying to be pragmatic it is most useful to teach Python 2.7 since that is the most widely used version.

Python 3, in 2013, is not lacking in pragmatism. It's not new, or experimental. Someone just learning today is going to have to immediately turn around and relearn things because they started out with an old version.

"immediately"? Try again in two-three years, if that.

Re: PythonMonk – Learn Python in the browser

#14

Post by gkoberger »

Interesting, however I feel like learning to code in a browser (even if it's JavaScript) doesn't work.

Sure, you may learn how to do a for loop or how variables work. But, you don't learn how to actually use the language. Setting up a development environment, and understanding how everything is connected is much more important.

Let's say you ace everything here, on CodeAcademy, etc. You still can't actually build anything.

(For more on this, see this article from HN a few days ago: http://blog.zackshapiro.com/want-to-learn-to-code-start-here)

Re: PythonMonk – Learn Python in the browser

#15

Post by kaiwren »

gkoberger wrote: post #14

Interesting, however I feel like learning to code in a browser (even if it's JavaScript) doesn't work. Sure, you may learn how to do a for loop or how variables work. But, you don't learn how to actually use the language. Setting up a development environment, and understanding how everything is connected is much more important. Let's say you ace everything here, on CodeAcademy, etc. You still can't actually build any…

We're building our way up to this. For now, we are focussing on helping more people teach how to think in a particular language.

We'll get to the rest fairly quickly, though that would likely be in the form of screencasts.

PS: I'm on the CodeMonk team, the folks that are behind PythonMonk.com and RubyMonk.com

Re: PythonMonk – Learn Python in the browser

#17

Post by teach »

pekk wrote: post #2

It is 2013. Why are you teaching Python 2?

"A programmer may try to get you to install Python 3 and learn that. You should tell them, 'When all of the python code on your computer is Python 3, then I'll try to learn it.' That should keep them busy for about 10 years."

- Zed Shaw, "Learn Python the Hard Way"

Re: PythonMonk – Learn Python in the browser

#18

Post by mmwanga »

I think this is a great way to get beginners / students coding, but the end product might be what we now know as "bolt-on" engineers. They put components together and build beautiful functional products, until it breaks and they have no idea what's "under the hood"

Re: PythonMonk – Learn Python in the browser

#20

Post by phleet »

The first thing I always try on sites like these is stuff like this:

__import__('commands').getstatusoutput('ls /')

or

__import__('subprocess').call(["ls", "-l"])

which gets blocked by the interpreter somehow with

exceptions.OSError - [Errno 11] Resource temporarily unavailable

I'm curious as to how you managed to do this - I've always been interested in how to sandbox something like this.

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