python in academics?

sandipm

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Oct 29, 2007, 11:39:29 PM10/29/07

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seeing posts from students on group. I am curious to know, Do they
teach python in academic courses in universities?

in undergrad comp science courses, We had scheme language as scheme
is neat and beautiful language to learn programming. We learnt other
languages ourselve with basics set right by scheme..

sandip

Jeff

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Oct 30, 2007, 8:58:02 AM10/30/07

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Yes, Python is used in many CS programs. In fact, I read that Guido
van Rossum often polls profs about their needs when thinking about new
features and the direction of the language.

kyos...@gmail.com

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Oct 30, 2007, 9:06:52 AM10/30/07

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They didn't at either of the colleges I went to. They seemed to be
focused on C++, COBOL and Visual Basic. All are used all over the
place, but only Visual Basic is easy for complete newbs. I hope more
colleges adopt Python or Ruby as a teaching language, but I don't
think it's a good idea to ignore COBOL or C++ since their used so
extensively in big business.

Mike

BartlebyScrivener

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Oct 30, 2007, 9:22:04 AM10/30/07

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On Oct 29, 10:39 pm, sandipm <sandip.m...@gmail.com> wrote:

> seeing posts from students on group. I am curious to know, Do they
> teach python in academic courses in universities?

This came up a while back. See:

http://tinyurl.com/2pjjua

If that doesn't work, search the Google group for "Python taught in
schools"

rd

Bruno Desthuilliers

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Oct 30, 2007, 3:55:48 PM10/30/07

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kyos...@gmail.com a écrit :

> On Oct 29, 10:39 pm, sandipm <sandip.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>seeing posts from students on group. I am curious to know, Do they
>>teach python in academic courses in universities?
>>
>>in undergrad comp science courses, We had scheme language as scheme
>>is neat and beautiful language to learn programming. We learnt other
>>languages ourselve with basics set right by scheme..
>>
>>sandip
>
>
> They didn't at either of the colleges I went to. They seemed to be
> focused on C++, COBOL and Visual Basic. All are used all over the
> place, but only Visual Basic is easy for complete newbs.

And alas one of the worst languages for a beginner - because you'll
probably need years to unlearn it.

> I hope more
> colleges adopt Python or Ruby as a teaching language, but I don't
> think it's a good idea to ignore COBOL or C++ since their used so
> extensively in big business.

being widely used doesn't imply being a good language for teaching CS
(nor even being a good language for anything).

kyos...@gmail.com

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Oct 30, 2007, 4:44:32 PM10/30/07

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On Oct 30, 2:55 pm, Bruno Desthuilliers
<bdesth.quelquech...@free.quelquepart.fr> wrote:
> kyoso...@gmail.com a écrit :

>
> > On Oct 29, 10:39 pm, sandipm <sandip.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>seeing posts from students on group. I am curious to know, Do they
> >>teach python in academic courses in universities?
>
> >>in undergrad comp science courses, We had scheme language as scheme
> >>is neat and beautiful language to learn programming. We learnt other
> >>languages ourselve with basics set right by scheme..
>
> >>sandip
>
> > They didn't at either of the colleges I went to. They seemed to be
> > focused on C++, COBOL and Visual Basic. All are used all over the
> > place, but only Visual Basic is easy for complete newbs.
>
> And alas one of the worst languages for a beginner - because you'll
> probably need years to unlearn it.

which language? I listed 3...and since you don't actually "learn" a
language at all in a beginner's class, I don't really have anything to
unlearn. All you get in those STUPID classes is a taste of
programming...if you're lucky.

>
> > I hope more
> > colleges adopt Python or Ruby as a teaching language, but I don't
> > think it's a good idea to ignore COBOL or C++ since their used so
> > extensively in big business.
>
> being widely used doesn't imply being a good language for teaching CS
> (nor even being a good language for anything).

I wasn't implying that they were good or bad, but that if you go to
work for most big businesses, than it would probably be beneficial to
know the language(s). For example, most insurance, financial and
government jobs use COBOL to some degree or another.

Mike

Anand

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Oct 30, 2007, 11:19:50 PM10/30/07

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Here is another interesting article "Algorithm Education in Python":

http://www.ece.uci.edu/~chou/py02/python.html

Floris Bruynooghe

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Oct 31, 2007, 9:47:50 AM10/31/07

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On Oct 30, 3:39 am, sandipm <sandip.m...@gmail.com> wrote:
> seeing posts from students on group. I am curious to know, Do they
> teach python in academic courses in universities?

In Southampton Uni (UK) they do teach (some) Python to Engineering
undergrads (aero, mech, ship, maybe more) thanks to one lecturer
pushing it afaik.

Regards
Floris

Cameron Walsh

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Nov 1, 2007, 9:46:15 AM11/1/07

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sandipm wrote:
> seeing posts from students on group. I am curious to know, Do they
> teach python in academic courses in universities?
>

Sydney University teaches user interface design, some data mining and
some natural language processing in Python. Software development is
still largely a Java or C affair.

Charles Allen

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Nov 1, 2007, 10:46:43 AM11/1/07

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sandipm:

> seeing posts from students on group. I am curious to know, Do they
> teach python in academic courses in universities?

Bruce Sherwood and Ruth Chabay have an introductory physics text that
uses python for getting students doing computer simulation and
visualization very "early" compared to most course sequences:

<http://www4.ncsu.edu/~rwchabay/mi/>

--
Charles Allen

Nicolas.Chauvat

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Nov 6, 2007, 5:58:03 AM11/6/07

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Le Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:39:29 -0700, sandipm a écrit :

> seeing posts from students on group. I am curious to know, Do they teach
> python in academic courses in universities?

I am teaching assistant for the course

http://www.etudes.ecp.fr/cours/claroline/course/index.php?cid=TI1210

held at http://www.ecp.fr/index_html_en

They are also making an increasing use of python over there.