Intro To Python Using Turtle Graphics

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Done by Northland Polytechnic, available for download under CC-BY-NC-ND here
<http://www.archive.org/details/IntroductionToPythonUsingTurtleGraphics>.

Thanks to Colin Jackson for the link.

 

[Enkidu]

>
Done by Northland Polytechnic, available for download under CC-BY-NC-ND here
<http://www.archive.org/details/IntroductionToPythonUsingTurtleGraphics>.

Urgh. Is that all that python is good for, drawing pretty pictures?

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Steven D'Aprano]

Urgh. Is that all that python is good for, drawing pretty pictures?

[sarcasm]
Yes, yes it is. When they talk about "batteries included", they mean the
batteries that run the turtle.
[end sarcasm]


Are you trolling or just a little sleep-deprived today?

The movie is an introduction aimed at 13-16 year old school children.
It's explicitly labelled as "an introduction using turtle graphics". What
on earth makes you think that because the introduction uses turtle
graphics, that's the ONLY thing that Python can do?

 

[Enkidu]

Yep, that's all <URL:http://python.org/about/success/>. Rackspace,
Google, NASA, Philips, Honeywell, AstraZeneca; they're *all*
organisations focussed on drawing pretty pictures, and that's all they
use Python for.

Sorry, I did not mean to post to the CLP list. It would be a stupid
troll to do so on purpose. My apologies. I *AM* a Perl fan but there is
room for both languages.

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Enkidu]

On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:02:31 +1300, Enkidu wrote:

Are you trolling or just a little sleep-deprived today?

Heh! Maybe a little sleep-deprived, but I didn't realise that the
original post was cross-posted to comp.lang.python. If I'd purposely
posted it to CLP it *would* have been a stupid troll. I did it by
accident, and apologise for doing so.

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Enkidu]

Oh, so trash-talking in *other* forums where you feel safe from being
caught is okay? ;-)

I take your point, but the other group in question is a 'local' group.

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[Terry Reedy]

I take your point, but the other group in question is a 'local' group.

I think he intended to mean that it was a local group where
trash-talking and stupid comments are the norm.

 

[Terry Reedy]

Done by Northland Polytechnic, available for download under CC-BY-NC-ND here
<http://www.archive.org/details/IntroductionToPythonUsingTurtleGraphics>.

I have two problems with the presentation, which make things harder for
the students than they should be.

First, the instructor has students edit code in an editor that cannot
directly run the code. Save the file. Click to a command window. Enter
'python somefile.py'. Ugh. Python comes with IDLE. Let students use it.
(Or some equivalent, but turtle works fine with IDLE.) Replace above
with 'press F5'. If there is a SyntaxError, not uncommon for students,
the edit window comes back with the cursor near the spot of the foul.

Within the code, the instructor does 'import turtle' followed by
'turtle.up', turtle.move(x,y)', etc. for tens of lines. Ugh. Either
'from turtle import *' (which turtle was designed for) or, if one does
not like that, 'import turtle as t', some one can write 't.up', etc.

There is also a echo glitch in the audio when the video comes from the
monitor, as opposed to the room camera.

Aside from the above, it seems like a decent intro presenting
statements, names, conditional execution, repeated execution, and
function encapsulation.

tjr