Podcast.init

Thonny: The IDE For Beginning Programmers with Aivar Annamaa – Episode 153

Mar 18 '18

Summary

Learning to program is a rewarding pursuit, but is often challenging. One of the roadblocks on the way to proficiency is getting a development environment installed and configured. In order to simplify that process Aivar Annamaa built Thonny, a Python IDE designed for beginning programmers. In this episode he discusses his initial motivations for starting Thonny and how it helps newcomers to Python learn and understand how to write software.

Preface

Hello and welcome to Podcast.__init__, the podcast about Python and the people who make it great.
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Your host as usual is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Aivar Annamaa about Thonny, a Python IDE for beginning programmers

Interview

Introductions
How did you get introduced to Python?
What was your motivation for building an IDE focused on beginning programmers?
What are the features of Thonny that make it easier for users to understand what is happening in their programs?
What have you found to be the types of issues that users most frequently struggle with and how does Thonny help overcome those gaps in understanding?
- [I think it makes sense to merge this question with previous]
What kinds of tutorials or supporting material have you found to be the most useful for teaching students the principles that they need to be able to take advantage of the environment that Thonny provides?
- [Do you mean material for preparing students for using Thonny? In my classes I just demonstrate stepping through couple of programs, explain what happens. After this the students can use the debugger on their own.]
How is Thonny built and what have been the most challenging aspects of writing an IDE in Python?
What are some of the interface design choices that you have made to avoid confusing or overwhelming beginning users?
Once a user becomes more proficient in Python is there a point where it no longer makes sense to continue using Thonny for development?
I noticed that Thonny has an plugin architecture and there is an extension for interacting with the BBC micro:bit. What are some of the other types of extensions that you would like to see built for Thonny?