this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2024
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Programming

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[–] SmartmanApps 25 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (49 children)

I, as a teacher, have had to learn several languages, but that's not the dumb reason bit. The dumb reason bit was WHY I had to teach Python, which once I learnt it (so I cold teach it) I could see right away was NOT a suitable language for teaching to Year 7 (who up to now have only used Scratch). I was teaching the U.K. curriculum, and I found out that teaching C# was also allowed - still not ideal, but better than Python for learners -but pretty much all schools were teaching Python. When I dug into it I found I was far from alone in not wanting to use Python... and I also found out the reason schools were teaching Python. It was because from an ADMINISTRATIVE point of view it was much easier for the schools to have us teaching Python. In other words, the office-workers who didn't have to teach it, only had to admin it, were forcing everyone to teach Python because they wanted the lower overhead that came with installing/maintaining that vs. C#. ARGH! All the teachers who wanted to teach C# were running into exactly the same road-block.

[–] 0xDREADBEEF 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Honestly, I taught myself JS in like 2009 as my first programming language. My high school taught Java, but I didn't get OOP. I understand functional programming though, so after JS I taught myself Elixir, then OCaml and Haskell. I really wish I was just taught Clojure or another lisp-like in school though. Python is... okay... I need expressions in my language, though, and Python is not that.

[–] SmartmanApps 2 points 1 month ago

My high school taught Java, but I didn’t get OOP

Yes, the correct sequence of events - one thing at a time, basic programming, then OOP. :-)

Python is not that.

It's not a lot of things, which makes it poor for a teaching language.

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