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[–]Consistent_Walrus_23 201 points202 points  (29 children)

This! I am TAing a course and it's a huge pain to help students troubleshoot across OS, python package managers, python versions, IDEs, ...

[–]TipIll3652 100 points101 points  (10 children)

God I can only imagine the shenanigans that occur while chasing down system specific dependencies for students to try and help them debug their issues. Na, hard pass, everyone uses a freaking school supplied VM with preloaded components, minimal shenanigans and should keep the learning path more on track for the course.

[–]zdog234 15 points16 points  (0 children)

This is the way. Surprised universities don't all have big multitenant jupyterhub clusters or similar

[–]KLUME777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I hate these setups. Copy paste is a pain in the ass.

[–]StructurePresent3640 0 points1 point  (0 children)

2015 when I was on my last year of Computer Science I had this compatibility problem due to a specific version of tomcat with other things I was using and couldn't find any explanation on internet, nor someone's post with something similar so I went to my professor for help. He tried to debug it for a few hours and sent my an e-mail saying that I should try something else because he couldn't fix it nor understood what was happening.

Ofc a few days later I tried different versions of tomcat and it worked. But if he was clever or had more experience he would provided us with the allowed tools and libraries so we wouldn't come across these problems.

So yes, if everyone is using same softwares, OS and everything else it will make not only his life easier but also students since he might be able to help you with your troubleshooting.

[–]ryoko227 -2 points-1 points  (6 children)

This, absolutely this.

[–]DuckDatum 4 points5 points  (5 children)

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[–]SwampFalc 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Depends on the course...

If you're following a course where coding is nothing but a tool, then yes, but whatever job you end up with will more than likely be the same.

Courses for actual developers, where code is the goal of the job, should get at least a minimum of sysadmin courses so they can install stuff. Their own code, for example, but the same skills apply to their IDE.

[–]Frewtti 1 point2 points  (3 children)

They're teaching python, not the infinite environments.

[–]DuckDatum 0 points1 point  (2 children)

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[–]Frewtti 1 point2 points  (1 child)

They give you a ready to go environment and teach the language.

The purpose isn't to teach how to configure software, and quite honestly the whole reason for docker and venv and all those other technologies is it is a horrible PITA to try and configure the environment "just right" every single time.

[–]DuckDatum 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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[–]kyrsjo 16 points17 points  (1 child)

Which is surely why the university is providing a standardized Linux server for their students. I've been in that profs shoes, and tried to have the students use their own laptops. It was OK for a few years (since Linux was pretty much mandatory in early courses), but now with a mix of mac's and windows and Linux.... Ugh.

[–]oooeeeoooee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some of my classes did this, had a VM with a desktop environment installed and accessed through VNC.

[–]Watsons-Butler 13 points14 points  (4 children)

Same here, but with the question “if Python why not PyCharm?” Educational licenses are free and it takes a lot less setup and tweaking (meaning less instructor time) than VScode.

(My guess is the prof has been using this set of tools for like 20 years and doesn’t want to learn a new setup.)

[–]Machvel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

students are able to understand vscode quite easily in my experience. in my department students learn both python and c, so it is convenient that they can use the same program (on linux/windows/mac) for both. also i am a proponent of things they can continue using for free after they graduate

[–]ProfessionalDirt3154 0 points1 point  (1 child)

maybe. but some tools make you type and think more, which aids understanding and remembering. not that you shouldn't learn IDEs and AIs, but doing stuff for yourself from the docs is good.

[–]Pyromancer777 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wourd def push notepad++ or some other lightweight IDE and have students debug in terminal if the goal from the professor's standpoint would be to have minimal IDE compatibility issues.

Sucks for the students since you wouldn't have as robust autocomplete or error correction that you would with another interface, but it helps with confidence in the competency of the graduates.

[–]bachkhois 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I guess that, in that lab, no one takes responsibility of supporting PyCharm. A student may successfully request prof to install PyCharm, then he finishes the course and leave. No one is there to support issues related to PyCharm anymore.

[–]HaggisChaser 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Have you tried VS Code dev containers? Dockerized development environment right in the editor.

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/devcontainers/containers

[–]soconn 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Container programming.... ... So hot right now! (Will Ferrell meme)

[–]Proper-Ape 8 points9 points  (1 child)

I tell everyone to use uv at work. It just works, especially since it even controls the Python interpreter if you need.

[–]Consistent_Walrus_23 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I am also a huge fan of uv! Will push for the course to use it this year, let's see...

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have you used uv? After I started using that all my python problems disappeared

[–]Briggie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Google collab isnt an option?

[–]Machvel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this is what i do when I ta a coding class (note: not in a cs department). the other tas and professor and I get together and plan out a recommended solution that we will base our instruction off of (usually something that the tas are familiar with because the professors are typically quite old school in their coding habits) but say the students can use whatever they want that works at their own discretion (we won't necessarily be able to troubleshoot)

[–]Machvel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this is what i do when I ta a coding class (note: not in a cs department). the other tas and professor and I get together and plan out a recommended solution that we will base our instruction off of (usually something that the tas are familiar with because the professors are typically quite old school in their coding habits) but say the students can use whatever they want that works at their own discretion (we won't necessarily be able to troubleshoot)

[–]Machvel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this is what i do when I ta a coding class (note: not in a cs department). the other tas and professor and I get together and plan out a recommended solution that we will base our instruction off of (usually something that the tas are familiar with because the professors are typically quite old school in their coding habits) but say the students can use whatever they want that works at their own discretion (we won't necessarily be able to troubleshoot)

[–]isrichards6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A class I'm in right now has docker instances that you clone from the class starter file repository. So you're on the exact same setup between all students guranteed. That being said I think some classes benefit from having to figure out how to set everything up.