[Edu-sig] Accessibility to non CS types?

[kirby urner]

> I know you know this, but just as an obligatory disclaimer, if PataPata is
> any good, while I can (and will :-) certainly take some credit for yet
> another attempt at putting constructivist educational ideas (and a
> prototype-programming paradigm) into a Pythonic context, the vast bulk of
> the ideas are coming through others like David Ungar, Adele Goldberg, John
> Maloney, Randy Smith, Maria Montessori, Dan Ingalls, Alan Kay, Seymour
> Papert, Grace Llewellyn, Diane Balestri, David Ferguson, and so on -- even
> Richard Stallman for the free software movement, and of course Guido van
> Rossum, for making Python so approachable and already prototype-ish.

Yes, I also acknowledge Stallman in my writings about Gnu Math for
obvious reasons.  Just today in fact:
http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2006/06/gnu-math.html

I also admire many of the constructivists you mention.  Adele I met at
an OSCON in 2004 I think it was (she listened to my Pythonic math
talk, along with Guido).  She emphasized to me how backward the math
faculties were, helping me see why we'd need to use TV and the
Internet more, if gnu math were to have a hope in hell.

Alan was fun to drink beer with in London.  Seymour I've not met yet
(hope to).

We enrolled my daughter in a Montessori school for kindergarten.

BTW, there's a small edge separating constructivism from
constructionism, with some of the differences addressed in this paper:
http://learning.media.mit.edu/content/publications/EA.Piaget%20_%20Papert.pdf

Anyway, today is another long day doing OO programming for a hospital
system (a client).  Visual FoxPro mostly, with Python around the edges
for janitorial and utility work.  VFP is great for rapid GUI
development, plus I like all the embedded SQL (part of the native
syntax).  Python is cleaner in a lot of ways.

During PyCon 2005, I hung out with some guys in DC interested in
converging the two cultures (Dabo http://dabodev.com/about ).
http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2005/03/pycon-2005.html

Kirby