The Python Podcast.__init__

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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.
• When you’re ready to launch your next app you’ll need somewhere to deploy it, so check out Linode. With private networking, shared block storage, node balancers, and a 40Gbit network, all controlled by a brand new API you’ve got everything you need to scale up. Go to podcastinit.com/linode to get a $20 credit and launch a new server in under a minute.
• For complete visibility into your application stack, deployment tracking, and powerful alerting, DataDog has got you covered. With their monitoring, metrics, and log collection agent, including extensive integrations and distributed tracing, you’ll have everything you need to find and fix bugs in no time. Go to podcastinit.com/datadog today to start your free 14 day trial and get a sweet new T-Shirt.
• To get worry-free releases download GoCD, the open source continous delivery server built by Thoughworks. You can use their pipeline modeling and value stream map to build, control and monitor every step from commit to deployment in one place. Go to podcastinit.com/gocd to learn more about their professional support services and enterprise add-ons.
• Visit podcastinit.com to subscribe to the show, sign up for the newsletter, and read the show notes.
• 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?
• 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?
• 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?

Keep In Touch

• Aivar
  • @aivarannamaa on Twitter
  • aivarannamaa on GitHub
  • Google Scholar Page



• Thonny
  • Website
  • Forum
  • @thonnyide on Twitter
  • Source repository and wiki

Picks

• Tobias
  • Data Engineering Podcast
  • Kubo and the Two Strings



• Aivar
  • MicroPython
  • Podcast.__init__ Interview
  • How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk

Links

• Thonny
• University of Tartu
• Estonia
• Recursion
• TKinter
• Aivar Estonian Textbook
• Pascal
• MyPy
  • Podcast.__init__ Interview



• BBC Micro:bit


• Version Control


• GitHub


• GitLab


• Elm Compiler Messages

The intro and outro music is from Requiem for a Fish The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

[00:00:14] Unknown:

Hello, and welcome to podcast.init,   the podcast about Python and the people who make it great.   When you're ready to launch your next app, you'll need somewhere to deploy it, so you should check out Linode. With private networking, shared block storage, node balancers, and a 40 gigabit network, all controlled by a brand new API, you get everything you need to scale.   Go to podcastinit.com/lino   to get a $20 credit and launch a new server in under a minute.   For complete visibility into your application stack, deployment tracking, and powerful alerting, Datadog has got you covered. With their monitoring, metrics, and log collection agent, including extensive integration and distributed tracing, you'll have everything you need to find and fix bugs in no time. Go to podcast then it.com/datadog   today to start your free 14 day trial and get a sweet new t shirt.  

And to get worry free releases, download Go CD, the open source continuous delivery server built by Thoughtworks.   You can use their pipeline modeling and value stream app to build, control, and monitor every step from commit to deployment in 1 place. Go to podcastthenit.com/gocd   to learn more about their professional support services and enterprise add ons.   And visit podcastthenit.com   to subscribe to the show, sign up for the newsletter, and read the show notes. Your host as usual is Tobias Macy, and today, I'm interviewing Haivar Anamah   about Thonny, a Python IDE for beginning programmers.  

So Haivar, could you start by introducing yourself?  

[00:01:32] Unknown:

Hi.   As you said, my name is Ivar. I am   a teaching assistant in University of Tartu,   Estonia.   I   have a wife, 2 kids,   and I have Tony. So this is pretty much my life at the moment.  

[00:01:50] Unknown:

And do you remember how you first got introduced to Python?  

[00:01:53] Unknown:

Yes. I think   I get it correct that   10 years ago I entered,   Computer Science PhD program in in my university.   And as a PhD student I was supposed to do some teaching.   So, I chose   to teach the labs, in the in our first programming course   which,   used, and still uses, Python.   So,   basically,   I my first,   serious   work with Python was   as a Python teacher.  

[00:02:32] Unknown:

And,   as we mentioned at the open, 1 of the projects that you're heavily involved with is Thonny, which is,   an IDE for that that focuses on making it easier for beginning programmers   to have a working development environment. So I'm wondering if you can talk about your motivation for building that project.  

[00:02:51] Unknown:

Alright.   So initially,   I had a much more, narrow   goal.   When I was teaching,   recursion in my labs,   I noticed that, too many students struggled   because they had in their heads,   an,   oversimplified   model about function calls.   They seem to think that the function call, it, means simply a jump from the call site to the definition site,   and then,   somehow   magically   back again.   In in some simple cases, this   my model kind of works.   But, when you add arguments,   local variables,   return values,   and,   recursion,   then it becomes really messy.   So my solution was to explicitly talk about   the concept of the stack frame   and, used to, draw it on the blackboard   several times.  

And when I got fed up with this then I realized I need a tool   which,   makes this   visualization   for me. So   this was the beginning of the journey actually. So it was not planned as   full featured IDE   actually.  

[00:04:10] Unknown:

And you mentioned 1 of the features   is that visualization   of the recursion stack and how the function actually ends up calling itself so that users can get a better visual understanding of what's actually happening. And I'm wondering if you can list some of the other features that you have added in over time that make it easier for users to understand what's happening in the context of their programs.  

[00:04:33] Unknown:

Well, the most important features are everything,   yeah, as you said, everything which,   uncovers what happens during the program run time.   So in other words, everything related to stepping, through the program. Well,   most IDEs,   can step through the program, but I believe Tony has,   managed to to make it more approachable and,   more meaningful   for beginners.   First, Thonny doesn't require   the user to set up, any breakpoints.   The user doesn't need to know about breakpoints at all. You just run   the program with a special command   and then   start pressing   certain key   until you reach the end of the program. That's it.  

That's,   in my opinion, enough for,   total beginners.   Okay.   If the programs get larger,   this,   stepping with small step or stepping,   through the whole program becomes,   really tedious.   And because of this, I plan to add, proper breakpoints   as an optional feature in the future. So   it's easier to get started with stepping with,   Thonny.   2nd, I think it's important that, Thonny's debugger,   follows   programs' logical structure,   not just code lines as traditional debuggers.   So for example, you can step over   a whole   while statement,   or on the other hand step into   the smallest   subexpression   in your program.  

So the   granularity   of the stepping is, dependent on the program structure,   not on   the textual   textual,   format of the code.   And,   I think this offers more flexibility.   But,   maybe even more importantly,   this provides,   good opportunity or good support for explaining,   Python syntax or the   statical structure of the program.   When you see how the,   debugger focuses   1 or the other   part of the code. And   as we also already mentioned,   the visualization of the call frames,   I think this is the feature   I'm most   proud of   in Fanny.   Beside of this,   if you leave   the program flow aside, you can that would also bring out the this special mode for   explaining Python   memory model. If you   select   from the View   menu   an item called heap,   then you see that the variable table   only maps variable names to addresses   and   values   or objects   themselves are living   elsewhere.  

So Tony shows you another table   called heap   which, maps,   addresses to the actual values.   So, I think this is quite useful   useful feature   for explain explaining   mutation and,   references.   Yeah. I think these are the most   important   features in phoneme.  

[00:07:58] Unknown:

And it sounds like there are a number of very sort of advanced   aspects   of the program that you've built in order to present some of these concepts in a much simpler manner for your users. I'm wondering what you found to be the most challenging   pieces of actually building Thonny to create that simpler view for people who are just beginning to get started and not overwhelm them with too much information?  

[00:08:23] Unknown:

Fortunately,   Python has been really forthcoming.   Because of its, dynamic nature and   because, for example, it has,   Python parser in the standard library and it has this wonderful inspect module   which allows me to check the state of,   current,   stack frames. So I think the most complex   questions were solved several years ago so I have forgotten most of it. Yeah. I think that, well, maybe I start by explaining that, how,   how Phony Phony works. So it,   it works in   2 operating system processes.   1 for the GUI   and   the back end process for running the user program and and the tracing   or debugging mechanism.  

The GUI is this is written in Tkinter   and, although many people   think this framework is old fashioned and looks ugly then actually   the newer versions of it look   quite pretty and   I've grown to like it like it a lot. And the back end,   the   the most important idea in this in implementing the debugger is that   I don't give Python virtual machine the original   user program.   So in order to gain more information about   the the process of running the code,   I modified a program   before   sending it   before running it. So basically   Tony parses,   user code and then   inserts   special,   function calls to it, special markers.  

And these calls,   let the bugler know,   for example, which subexpression   is going to be executed next and what was the value and,   the address of the last expression value, etcetera.   So Tony   is   Tony's debugger,   uses   instrumented   code. It will this was the key.   This   choice,   brings along   an unfortunate   aspect that   the debugger is quite inefficient. So if   you run a larger   program and want to step over a large part of the code then it happens quite slowly. But, Stone is clearly   designed and meant for   beginners. For this reason I can assume that the programs are not too big.   So it's not a too big problem at the moment.  



[00:11:16] Unknown:

And as users are first getting introduced to programming   and the Python language, I'm wondering if there are any particular kinds of tutorials or supporting material that you found to be the most useful for getting students up to speed on the principles that they need to be able to actually start writing programs and using Phonni to iterate through them? In the similar fashion that I didn't find a good tool for  

[00:11:43] Unknown:

for explaining   or for visualizing the stack frames and the code stack.   I wasn't happy with the Estonian language materials   meant for teaching Python for beginners.   So,   actually, I wrote my own textbook,   web based textbook.   And,   yeah. I think this is the material,   material I am most happy with regarding programmers.   And I I'm not sure I can outline   what have been my principles in writing this   textbook.   I think I managed   to strike good balance on,   precision and   and avoiding   unnecessary   formalities.   So   that's what I was aiming in Tony as well   To   make the   interface   or the visualizations   intuitive   but, at the same time not   oversimplified.  



[00:12:46] Unknown:

And in terms of the programming environment that Thonny presents, I actually installed it and experimented with it a little bit on a program that I was trying to debug and I   was pleased by the lack of visual clutter in the overall environment which can be something that plagues some of the more advanced IDEs.   So I'm wondering what types of design decisions you were faced with and what you were aiming for as you were building the UI for users to ensure that there weren't too many options that would confuse or overwhelm the users as they were first getting started?  

[00:13:22] Unknown:

User interface   design have has been interesting for me for a long time and I always   aimed for,   user interfaces which are as clear as possible. So in this sense, the work with Tony was not   special for me. I guess a couple of times I have for example, I have considered adding,   a toolbar over the rebel or the shell pane   in addition to the main toolbar. But I have just   resisted the search and   chose   the the clear look   of the of the shell pane.   Yeah. I guess you just need to give up   some of your wishes   when you want to maintain this clear   appearance   or find another way.  

I have used menus quite,   quite a lot so I think menus are something that that   because they are hidden   initially,   then they are not intimidating   for the pec beginner user.  

[00:14:29] Unknown:

Yeah. I think that gives a lot of sort of progressive exposure where the user can first just open up the program and start writing something. Yeah. And as they find that they need some additional functionality, they can then go searching through the menus to find it and then enhance their overall capabilities with the tool.  

[00:14:47] Unknown:

Mhmm. And that was also the reason why I chose not to show the variables,   panel,   by default. So   I expect that   when the students   goes   to her first lesson then   she starts with just running a program and then the instruct instructor   tells, no students select   the view menu and open up the variables pane. So it's   makes the process more gradual.  

[00:15:21] Unknown:

And in terms of auto completion, have you found that to be a useful feature as people are first getting started? Or do you think that it adds too much confusion when somebody might start typing a variable name or a library function and have it give them that list of options?  

[00:15:37] Unknown:

At the moment, Tony does,   support auto completion, but only the user need to explicitly invoke it with the control spacebar or with the tab.   And I think I will keep it I will keep this as   default   because, yes, I think it might be confusing for total beginners if something just, pops up. And as the users become more proficient  

[00:16:02] Unknown:

in using Python and programming logic and start building more complicated applications, is there a point where it no longer makes sense to continue using Thonny? Or does it grow with their experience so that they can use it once they start using it in a more professional context?  

[00:16:19] Unknown:

Yeah. I think this, point, will arrive because, I have no intentions   to,   compete with   PyCharm or other professional,   Python IDs in terms of, let's say, program refactorings   or   the level of,   programmer analysis.   So I need to maintain the scope and, yeah. I think when a student has learned the semantics of,   required programming   concepts and when the programs   grow bigger and, he or she will benefit more   from the good   auto completion   and comfortable refactorings, then if she is really wise to abandon Toni and use something heavier instead. In terms of introducing people to the concept  

[00:17:09] Unknown:

of programming in general, how have you found Python   for being the first language   and have you worked with any other languages for the introductory material to have any sort of comparison?  

[00:17:22] Unknown:

I like I think,   Python is   a pretty good language,   pretty good, first language.   Myself, I was using Pascal as a first language when I was learning programming.   Sometimes I do regret   that,   Python doesn't have static types as they were in Pascal. Because occasionally I see that,   students   that the dynamic typing   of the of   Python allows students to   or I don't know what it allows or invites students to be less precise in their thinking.   Something that, static languages   really   punish,   quickly. If you don't understand what will be in your variable, then you will write the wrong,   type annotation.  

In Python, I quite often see that the student even gets the program,   working correctly.   But when I ask   him,   what kind of, values can be in this particular variable,   he's unable to answer this question. And I think this is the place where static,   languages   have an advantage.   But, on the other hand Python of course has the advantage of, enabling people to do   complex   stuff faster than many other languages. So   it's not a  

[00:18:47] Unknown:

clear clear answer whether it's a perfect language for for beginners or not. And are there any any other kinds of bad habits that you feel that Python invites users to develop when they're learning or any other pitfalls   that you see students falling into   on a somewhat frequent basis as they're beginning to start programming with Python?  

[00:19:08] Unknown:

At the moment,   nothing else,   comes to my mind. At least, not anything which is which, stems from the language.   So in fact I have been planning to experiment   with this,   mypy project which allows,   Python to be used kind of a static   static way.   So we'll see whether it is whether I can make some exercises for students where they are forced to annotate their variables.   So with this,   support,   maybe it's possible to get rid of even even this this problem. But   I don't see any other obstacles   caused by the Python language  

[00:19:50] Unknown:

when they are regarding learning to program. And as I was reading through the documentation,   I noticed the fact that Bonnie has a plug in architecture   and that there's currently an extension   that was written for interacting with the BBC   micro:bit, which is a hardware module that was introduced in classrooms in the United Kingdom for introducing students to concepts of programming and hardware interfaces.   So I'm wondering if there are any other types of extensions that you would like to see built for Thonny or if you have any thoughts or interaction with the, creator of that micro:bit extension. Actually, the creator of this extension is a student  

[00:20:28] Unknown:

student of mine. So it was his   bachelor thesis part of his bachelor thesis and I was his supervisor.   So I have been quite closely connected to this project.   The plug in system is quite flexible. Actually,   most of the functionality   in Toni, actually, even including the user interface part of the debugger is,   implemented as a plug in. So in this sense, I could rephrase your question that what I wish, people would build   into Tony, whether by a a plug in or by just directly,   contributing to Tony's code.   Yeah. I have some plans for,   extensions myself. But if I'm thinking about   the extensions,   I wish Tony would have, but I but I have don't have time for this myself. And I wish Tony has a tutorial or exercise system. Something like which would work like this.  

An instructor,   writes down a tutorial   or   exercise, for example, also with, automatic   tests,   let's say, in restructured text format,   uploads it,   to GitHub   and Thon is able to download the specification   and, display it in a separate,   panel,   in a side panel so that the student can see the   exercise   definition and   his code at the same time. And the system is   able to test   a user's code against these specifications.   This is sometimes   something that I planned to do but I   haven't had time for this. So if somebody else wishes to do this I would be really happy. Also I'm,   thinking that it would be nice if Tony had a basic   or simplified support for version control. So that you could open   files from GitHub and save them back to GitHub.  

I've missed, these features,   in a classroom where the students didn't have their own, accounts in the class in the lab, computers.   So some of them did have   USB sticks with them. Some of them have had forgotten them. So it was quite messy. So it would be really nice if it's possible to save save your work   into cloud   or let's say into GitHub with Thonny.   Also, in the next version of Thonny I hope to have completed a system for defining,   visual themes. And when this is ready ready, I expect people to   contribute new themes to Tony. Yeah. But,   mostly I I wish that people just   or I expect that people are extending Tony   in ways that I don't  

[00:23:23] Unknown:

anticipate at the moment, implementing features that I haven't thought of. And so for anybody who does want to experiment with Thonny or contribute back to it, I'll make sure to add the link to the project repository in the show notes. Are there any other topics that we didn't discuss yet that you think we should cover whether in the context of beginning programmers   or introduction to the Python language or the Thonny project in particular?  

[00:23:48] Unknown:

I think I have, spoken,   about all the most important   topics for me.   Yeah. About the the future plans and also, yeah, to release maybe to   previous question about the extends extending Tony. There's 1,   at the moment, Tony will help people to, learn   the semantics of their program or semantics of their program constructs. But, total beginners,   in 1st weeks, their most urgent or most   frustrating problems are syntax errors.   And at the moment, Honey doesn't, offer any support for this. So,   I plan to add,   some support myself.   For example, if while statement is missing a colon, then Tony could   tell the user that you are missing a colon here. Not that you are having a syntax error here. But, I think   these kinds   of, support   is something that, can come from, many   contributors.  

Like, there might be   different problems that,   different,   instructors   perceive. And   it would be really good if   we could collaborate   and, get get the best,   support   for programming errors also into Toni.  

[00:25:09] Unknown:

Yeah. I can definitely agree that cryptic error messages   can be rather off putting, especially as you're first getting started and linting can occasionally   help with that where you can see before you try to run the program that the syntax isn't,   correct or that   the structure isn't sort of meeting the general community best practices, but oftentimes even those messages   aren't structured in a way that are easy to understand. And so I know that a lot of other language communities, particularly   things like Elm and Elixir have put in a lot of effort to make sure that their compiler messages are very descriptive and helpful and provide references to additional documentation that will help people with understanding where the source of their error happens. So I think that having that similar functionality   within Thonny or even, any, you know, Python linter would be very valuable to beginning programmers.  



[00:26:02] Unknown:

For example,   in recent weeks, I have,   met several students who   were pulling their hair because they were, let's say, they were writing   a program with Python turtle   and they named their program turtle. Py. And they were wondering why their program doesn't work. So   it's quite easy to support   to to give a proper   and helpful error message in these cases.  

[00:26:33] Unknown:

Well, for anybody who wants to follow the work that you're up to or get in touch about the work you're doing,   either in Thonny or in your classroom, I'll have you add your preferred contact information to the show notes. And so with that, I'll move us on into the picks.   And this week,   I know that I've mentioned a few times in past episodes,   just briefly that I have another podcast, but I'm going to call it out specifically that I have been, the past couple of months releasing weekly the data engineering podcast, which is focused on the challenges and technologies   around modern data management and data engineering practices. So for anybody who is working in that space or curious about, any of the trends there, I definitely would appreciate you giving that a listen. And then my other pick this week is a movie that I watched over the weekend with my son called Kubo and the 2 strings. And it was just a very well done movie with very interesting animation style and a really well done story. So I highly recommend that. And so with that, I'll pass it to you. Do you have any picks for us this week?  



[00:27:33] Unknown:

Yeah. I was thinking of,   2 items.   So first is, MicroPython.   I don't know how popular or how well known it is   in the Python community   but,   we were already mentioning this,   bbc microbit   which is able to,   run   a really nice   version of Python called MicroPython   which invites Python   programmers to   the   to the field of electronics or robotics.   And myself also am   quite fascinated   about this field lately.   I'm not expert in this field,   but   I find it very   fun to play around with   small microcontrollers   supporting   MicroPython.   So I invite   Python programmers to look up MicroPython and maybe buy a $10   board to play with.  

Okay.   And, another pick. I'm reading a book   about children. It's called   How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and How to Listen so Kids Will Talk. And if there is a parent who hasn't read it yet, then I definitely   recommend it. It really gives different it might give you different,   view on your on the problems of your kids or on your   relationship with your kids.  

[00:29:04] Unknown:

Alright. Well, thank you very much for taking the time today to talk to me about your work with Thonny and with teaching,   beginning programmers.   I definitely appreciate that and I'm planning on using Thonny to teach my own children how to program So thank you for your work on that and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you.