My students are leaping into the pit and will see how to wrestle with this language during the course of their capstone project. I am also investigating it from another angle as I develop my first MOO(K) with my own twist. Stay tuned and feel free to post any of your experience. Windows and Linux platforms are mingling must easier now with improved OS interfaces....
My recommendation is that you should tell your students to focus on Python 3. The main reason is that Numpy has already a plan for dropping Python 2.7 support. Until the end of 2018, all NumPy releases will fully support both Python2 and Python3, but in 2019 new features releases will support only Python3.
Similar strategies will be follow by other important projects such as Jupyter, Pandas, Matplotlib, SymPy
More info:
http://python3statement.org/
https://github.com/numpy/numpy/blob/master/doc/neps/dropping-python2.7-proposal.rst
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15707956
Therefore, unless you need a very specific library only available for Python 2... better choose Python 3
I have used may version of Python 2 in OSX, Windows and Ubuntu, I have never had compatibility problems, most of the Python libraries are cross-platform. The only problems are when it needed to change from python 2 to python 3. There are some minimal things that need to be adapted.
Here there is a link that shows how to create Python 2 and 3 compatible code, showing their differences.
http://python-future.org/compatible_idioms.html
In my area (Robotics) many libraries are only compatible with Python 2. In others Python 3 can be the best choice.
My recommendation is that you should tell your students to focus on Python 3. The main reason is that Numpy has already a plan for dropping Python 2.7 support. Until the end of 2018, all NumPy releases will fully support both Python2 and Python3, but in 2019 new features releases will support only Python3.
Similar strategies will be follow by other important projects such as Jupyter, Pandas, Matplotlib, SymPy
More info:
http://python3statement.org/
https://github.com/numpy/numpy/blob/master/doc/neps/dropping-python2.7-proposal.rst
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15707956
Therefore, unless you need a very specific library only available for Python 2... better choose Python 3
Python is an important and evolving language and worth teaching but it exists within an evolving ecosystem of library modules and APIs. I would recommend developing a representative flagship Python application or system that you plan to teach with, get it working as the school year approaches and then freeze your Python version as well as the libraries it uses. Once you're through using it for the year, upgrade Python to the latest version, re-test your flagship application and upgrade library modules and APIs as needed to get it working again. Now you're ready for the next school year. You could even do the upgrade as an exercise for advanced classes or outstanding students looking for a summer project.
Thanks for the feedback. I did work with them on the version control issues and we were able to program the interfaces to our Odroid platform. One thing we really didn't like about that solution for embedded systems was the power consumption. It was also not very well documents and was overall a glorified Pi but probably not the best flavor. Razzleberry would be more appropriate or Rhubarb. It wasn't very sweet but bitter.
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