[volaski]

1. If you think Python is a pain, I don't think there is any other language you can learn. I've learned lots of different languages, but Python was one of the easiest to pick up and get started--not so different from BASIC. 2. Unless things have changed since I last worked with python, your statement "Everything is an object" is not true. Actually this is one thing I like about Python over Ruby (In Ruby, everything actually is an object.) As far as I know, Python has primitives, and therefore not as confusing as ruby for beginners. 3. Here's a problem: "Build a program that fetches content from a web page.". Try building that without using any modules. Maybe even try that with your BASIC if you want. By using modules you just reuse what people have already built, and can solve aforementioned problem with just a couple of lines.

[klrr]

I get your point, but why should you even bother using modules when you are trying to learn programming? The scenario you suggests isen't a task for a beginner, especially not a kid with no experience. Anyway, I just want to say a quick apology, I relize my first post sounded a bit more aggresive than intended, sorry about that.

[Jach]

What sorts of problems and modules did you have in mind? Sure some modules can spoil the learning fun of the problem, but in most cases they seem to enhance it. Implementing the sqrt function is interesting to me (and in fact it's done early on in the SICP book for college freshmen), I also think it's interesting how other math functions can be implemented, but would you want kids who may not even have a solid grasp of what a logarithm is to implement the log function? How about making a 2D game? Why wouldn't you use PyGame?

[klrr]

The thing is, using a function like sqrt is totally ok, but what I was more pointing to is that many tutorials teaches how to use module's in the very beginning and encuaraging(sorry for my bad english) using them to rather bypass problems instead of solving them. As for pygame, all tutorials I found said prior OOP knowledge was essential, which I had yet to understand.

[Jach]

I'm still having a hard time following... Maybe you could give a specific example of a problem that modules bypass? Is it just simply the idea of modules and the annoyance of having your code in multiple places and naive tutorials wanting to put everything in classes when you just want to solve one problem you thought was pretty simple?

For PyGame, I wouldn't say it's that essential, but there's a tendency for most tutorials to classify everything when often there's no reason to. The amount of OOP knowledge needed is very basic and following the simple examples is a great way to learn OOP in the first place. But I remember feeling frustrated with all the indirection and namespacing (part of the "module" frustration you had perhaps?) when I first looked at Python, having come previously from PHP. "pygame.display.set_mode() is dumb, why can't I just type make_screen()?"

[klrr]

If I had more time I could gladly try to find all tutorials I'm targeting at, this ain't targeted at the book mentioned in the story, that one I haven't tried. The thing I personally found hard is that these OOP and modules things come up in many tutorials in general, not all, I can see that both OOP and using modules instead of rewritting stuff that's already made is good, but I don't think that's the way to go for beginner's, BASIC is much better at that.

[int_19h]

Python primitive types are also objects. It's been that way for many years.