--On Wednesday, January 10, 2001 12:04 PM -0500 WHITSTON@... wrote:
> Would anyone have an idea where I could find a list of which
> colleges/universities are using Python in their Computer Science
> courses?
I doubt that such a list exists. However, if you do a search using
http://www.google.com, you can probably find many of them. I did a search for
"VPython" and found one of the VPython courses that way. Here are reports
I've gathered about using VPython (as opposed just to Python) in CS courses:
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I've just been reading the informal evaluations I had them write
at the start of today's class, the last class of the term.
Their reactions, as I expected, were very positive, both to
the results of using Python and in particular to VPython.
In a quick scan of the evaluations, I see that several students
said that their work involving Visual was the most interesting
and fun part of the course. They've been using visual occasionally
since the second (or third) week of the course. I let them do
a creative project at the end of the course. The only major
requirements were to use visual and to use class definitions.
They had about a week to work on the projects.
The quality of the projects varied, but all of the students were
able to complete projects that had a stunning appearance because
they were using the Visual module. One young woman wrote
a program that retrieves the weather report from yahoo and presents
a corresponding animation of, for instance, rain drops falling from
clouds. Another project showed a snowman riding a unicycle
back and forth on a basketball court. Another showed a chicken
walking around, eating seeds and growing to amusingly absurd
proportions. In short, the projects were entertaining and gave
the students practice doing some creative programming work.
I will be interested to see how easily this first group of python
programmers will adapt to Java in our data structures course
next fall. My hope and expectation is that they will perform
just as well as our students that used C++ for both courses.
Thanks again for your work on VPython.
David Binger
binger@... (Centre College in Kentucky
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I'm planning a 3-credit Introduction to Programming in Python for the
Spring 2001 semester. I plan to cover the syntax in the first half, using
a shared Linux-based system, and then spend the rest of the time on Visual
Python and other Python initiatives, both shared and pc-based. I'm trying
to persuade colleagues from physics, chemistry and math to join the class
to take advantage of the demo programs provided with the VPython package.
Dick S.
rhseabrook@...
Anne Arundel Community College
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I'm teaching a class in "Introduction to Computer Graphics" to CS majors
this term (next term includes Engineering students) and I was looking for
a way to show the difference between rendering an image in POV-RAY and
doing animation (I'm aware POV-RAY can do pseudo-animation, but I was
looking for something more real-time). I saw your article in the IEEE
journal "Computing in Science and Engineering" and, at that point, decided
to add VPython to the class. The students like the animation, but I'm not
too sure about the Python part (it's NOT a HOT language and the lack of
strong typing bothers them -- not me though).
Thanks for making it available.
My first language was Fortran 2 (so that dates me, I guess).
Howard Whitston
Adjunct Professor
Math/CS Dept.
Lawrence Technological University
whitston@...
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