Write Your Python Program

A user-friendly python programming environment for beginners.

The ideas of this environment are based on the great ideas from Schreib dein Programm!.

Quick start

• Step 1. Install Python 3.8.x or 3.9.x.
• Step 2. Install the write-your-python-program extension. You need at least Visual Studio Code version 1.49.0.
• Step 3. Open or create a Python file. The "RUN" button in the taskbar at the bottom will run your file with the teaching language provided by write-your-python-program.

Troubleshooting

• By default, the extension use the python interpreter of the regular python extension. To use a different interpreter, configure it in the settings.
• The extension disables linting of Python code when activated. This is well-suited for beginners but might cause unwanted effects when you rely on linting. In such cases, you have to deactivate the extension.

What's new?

Here is the Changelog.

Breaking change in version 0.11.0 (2021-03-11): wypp is no longer automatically imported. You need an explicit import statement such as from wypp import *.

Features

Here is a screen shot:

When hitting the RUN button, the vscode extension saves the current file, opens a terminal and executes

python3 -i /path/to/extension/python/src/runYourProgram.py CURRENT_FILE.py

This makes the following features available:

Type Definitions

You can define enums, records and mixed data types and the use them with the type hints of Python 3. At the moment, such type hints serve only the purpose of documentation. A later iteration of the "write your python program" extension will use the type hints for dynamic type checks.

Enums

Color = Enum('red', 'green', 'blue')

Records

@record
class Record:
    x: float
    y: float

@record
class Circle:
    center: Point
    radius: float

You work with a record like this:

p = Point(2, 3) # point at x=2, y=3
print(p.x)      # Print 2

Fields of records are immutable by default. You get mutable fields with @record(mutable=True).

Mixed Data Types

PrimitiveShape = Mixed(Circle, Square)

To use recursive types, you need DefinedLater:

Shape = Mixed(Circle, Square, DefinedLater('Overlay'))
Overlay = Record("Overlay", "top", Shape, "bottom", Shape)

Case distinction works like this:

def workOnShape(s: Shape):
    if Square.isSome(s):
        # s is a Square, do something with it
    elif Circle.isSome(s):
        # s is a Circle, do something with it
    elif Overlay.isSome(s):
        # s is an Overlay, do something with it
    else:
        uncoveredCase()

If your mixed type is made up of primitive types such as str or int, you can also use hasType(ty, value) for checking if value has some type ty.

Tests

Tests are defined via check. The first argument of check is the actual result, then second argument the expected result.

check(factorial(4), 24)

Import

You don't have to import the features explicitly, but you can import them like this:

from wypp import *

This allows integration with tools like to python debugger.

Annotations

Currently, type annotations serve only the purpose of documentation, they are not checked in any way. Also, the code is run with from __future__ import annotations (see PEP 563), which will be the default from python 3.10 on. This means that you can use a type as an annotation before the type being defined, for example to define recursive types or as the type of self inside of classes. In fact, there is no check at all to make sure that anotations refer to existing types.

For the future, it is planned to check anotations dynamically, along the lines of contracts for racket.

Module name and current working directory

When executing a python file with the RUN button, the current working directory is set to the directory of the file being executed. The __name__ attribute is set to the value '__wypp__'.

Bugs & Problems

Please report them in the issue tracker.

Hacking

You can debug the extension from Visual Studio Code:

• Open the main folder of the plugin with vscode.
• Open the file extension.ts.
• Choose "Run" from the menu, then "Start Debugging".