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[Python-Dev] Informal educator feedback on PEP 572 (was Re: 2018 Python Language Summit coverage, last part)

Chris Barker chris.barker at noaa.gov
Sat Jun 23 00:08:37 EDT 2018 
On Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 7:23 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info>
wrote:

> > But once it becomes a more common idiom, students will see it in the wild
> > pretty early in their path to learning python. So we'll need to start
> > introducing it earlier than later.
>
> Students see many features early in their path. I've had people still
> struggling with writing functions ask about metaclasses. People
> will see async code everywhere. We don't have to teach *everything* at
> once.
>

These are not similar at all -- if you want similar examples, I"d say
comprehensions, and lambda, both of which I DO introduce fairly early

While newbies will *ask* about metaclasses, it's probably because they read
about them somewhere, not because someone actually used a metaclass in a
simple script or answer to a common question on SO.

As for async, you are either doing async or not -- you can't even run an
async def function without an event loop -- so again, it won't show up in
real code newbies need to understand (at least until async becomes common
practice with python...)

-CHB

 So if you absolutely need to teach it to a beginner, it
> shouldn't be difficult once they understand the difference between an
> expression and a statement.
>

probably not, though that's a distinction that's mostly academic in the
early stages of learning, it may become more critical now...

again, not a huge deal, just a little bit more complexity

-CHB

-- 

Christopher Barker, Ph.D.
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