Mailman 3 October 2004 - Edu-sig

Re: [Tutor] what? (late nite entertainment) (*)
by Gregor Lingl 24 Mar '05

24 Mar '05

Now: early morning corrections ... Alfred Milgrom wrote: > Hi Gregor: > > Hard to work out what is what :) as there seems to be a typo in one > line of your code: > > if x[z]: x[z*z:n:z]=y[z*z:n:z] > > (At least it doesn't work on my machine with Python 2.2) > Yeah, I had the idea when playing around with some new features of Python 2.3, as I do sometimes late at night - before shutting down my computer. This one I found at: http://www.python.org/doc/2.3.3/whatsnew/section-slices.html and I looked for an example for use of "assignment with extended slices" ... > Also the subroutine breaks for n = 1 or less. > Maybe you need a line at the start to say > if n <2 : return [0] > what() was intended to generate all primes less than n. (In fact it's an implementation of the sieve of Eratosthenes). The bugs came not only from not beeing interested in primes less than 2 ;-) but also from beeing a little tired already. Sorry. I think the following version repairs that - and hopefully uses less obfuscating variable names (which in fact originally was part of the "riddle"): def primes(n): sieve, zeros = range(n), [0]*n sieve[:2]= 0,0 i = 1 while i*i < n: if sieve[i]: sieve[i*i:n:i]=zeros[i*i:n:i] i += 1 return [p for p in sieve if p] Regards, Gregor >

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Ubuntu
by Arthur 13 Nov '04

13 Nov '04

Couldn't get the Linksys wireless card working on the Dell Latitude Win2k machine that sort of fell off a truck and into my possession. I was meaning to try Ubuntu anyway. http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ Ubuntu is a 1 CD debian based Linux desktop. I think Mark Shuttleworth has something to do with its creation. Anyway its Python friendly. It recognizes my wireless card and finds my home wireless network on install. Beyond that - it ends up putting me onto a gnome desktop that's extremely sparse and extremely pleasing. Just the aesthetic quality of things like the Ubuntu logo, and default desktop background, give one s sense of something special. Which I truly sense Ubuntu to be. Art

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RE: [Edu-sig] RE: "Croquet Project" and Python ?
by Arthur 29 Oct '04

29 Oct '04

> -----Original Message----- > From: Kirby Urner [mailto:urnerk@qwest.net] > Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2004 11:47 AM > To: 'Arthur'; 'J Max'; edu-sig(a)python.org > Subject: RE: [Edu-sig] RE: "Croquet Project" and Python ? > > > Is he a hero again for then undertaking the Croguet effort, which seeks > to > > be the new internet, and failing. > > > > I dunno, maybe. A lot of these things will become clear 50 years from > now, > looking back. > > I feel no real urgency to define who are the good guys and bad guys in > this > drama. I don't tend toward an activist stance on many issues, really. Mostly because I don't reach conclusions very easily - trying to have due respect for complexity. And additionally because I think folks have the right to pursue (within reasonable bounds) their self-interest, undisturbed by a lot of moralizing. And were Kay pursuing HPs dominance in convergent media, and pulling down seven figures a year for it - swell for him and HP. But in the realm in which we are dealing - education - things are a bit different. It is a profession, not a business. And though it has not developed a formal code of conduct - as for example the legal profession, there is, as far as I am concerned, an implicit code of conduct. I feel Kay has breached that implicit code. The end. Art

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Whither PyGeo?
by Arthur 29 Oct '04

29 Oct '04

Just thought I'd throw out a Python success/failure story. The failure part: Have not gotten it together to issue a new release of PyGeo for almost 2 years. Not that I haven't been tinkering with it constantly, and working on some other essentials like decent docs, etc. And not that I still don't think it's cool (and gotten significantly cooler). But it ain't there yet. The success part: The main reason I have not had to time to polish off a release of PyGeo is not surprising - I gotta make a buck, and that has to take priority, and that takes time. The surprising part, to me, is how I'm making a buck these days - largely as a developer. Which is a pretty full circle mid-life career change that I seem to have pulled off. I'll never be a developer in the sense that many in the Python community are. But I've pulled off some decent stuff where the problem domain was financial. I seem to able to compensate for modest development skills with strong background in business financial issues, and have as a result developed a word-of-mouth freelance development practice successful enough to keep me away from much time at PyGeo, but with a family fed. And while I do not develop in Python professionally - most of the skills I've developed, I've developed in Python. And any code I'm writing, I'm thinking in Python, and translating as necessary. Thought I owed Python at least that little testimonial. Art

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Disney Dream Desk PC
by Arthur 28 Oct '04

28 Oct '04

I innocently came across this thing displayed front and center at CompUSA on Fifth today. http://www.compusa.com/specials/promos/disneydreamdesk/default.asp?credir=1 It is more ludicrous looking in person than in the photos. Probably because the photographer had the good sense to find an angle that underplays the size of the monitor's mouse ears. (Which is a sentence I would have not predicted I would ever be writing). It comes with a caveat: """ Warning: extended use may result in a lifelong love of learning! """ We stand warned. I'm thinking either the wrong 1000, or they forgot a few, in the 1999 layoffs Tom reports. Art

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Re: RE: RE: RE: [Edu-sig] Computer Languages via Immersion Experiences
by ajsiegel＠optonline.net 26 Oct '04

26 Oct '04

Kirby - > > As it happens I don't consider myself to being making a judgment. > > > > You: > > "Perhaps irrevocably **prejudiced** by Mr. Kay's decision to > wittingly > or unwittingly assist Disney in their effort to become a force > in > education for dollars, I for one feel little affinity with the > Squeak community." [italics added] > > http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2004-October/003991.html > > Dictionary: > > prej.u.dice ( P ) Pronunciation Key (prj-ds) > n. > > 1. > 1. An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or > withoutknowledge or examination of the facts. > 2. A preconceived preference or idea. > 2. The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived > judgments or > convictions. See Synonyms at predilection. > 3. Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or > religion. > 4. Detriment or injury caused to a person by the preconceived, > unfavorable conviction of another or others. > > http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=prejudiced&r=67 Caught me in the act of a bit of self-deprecation. True enough, I got to cut that out. The turth is I feel a lack of affinity for the Squeak community because I feel a lack of affinity for the Squeak community. The fact that their Guru's performances, which I have been interested enough in to take the time to observe, have consistently disturbed my sensibilities - is the best explanation I can give. Though I did make the point clearly in the quote above, that I had considered the possiblitiy that he was in his own way, a victim of the circumstances himself. Perhaps, in retrospect, he might not totally disagree. It is also true that using the word "prejudice" might have left the impression that I considered the possibility that in fact I was holding on to this too long, and that my best reason was being swayed by emotion. I take it back. Anybody who doesn't think Kay is a a schmuck, is a schmuck. Happier? Art

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Re: RE: RE: [Edu-sig] Computer Languages via Immersion Experiences
by ajsiegel＠optonline.net 25 Oct '04

25 Oct '04

> > > Overexposure to mercury must have the effect of making one's > common sense > > grotesquely large. > > > > Freakish common sense. Something one learns to live with, > evenutally.> > > Art > > I get that you have supreme faith in your own judgments. As it happens I don't consider myself to being making a judgment. I am reporting a disturbance to my sensibilities. And explaining it as best I can. One's sensiblities are not something one has faith in, or does not have faith in. One has an experience, an emotion. But yes, I have respect for those emotions when I consider then to be coming from a concerned place. And worthy of reportage. Art

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Re: RE: [Edu-sig] Computer Languages via Immersion Experiences
by ajsiegel＠optonline.net 25 Oct '04

25 Oct '04

> > > > Two possibilities: > > > > Points that could be made as self-evident ( might not in fact > need to be > > made explicitly ) in other forums where I am more the fish in > water, than > > out - seem somehow obscure here. > > > > Too much mercury. > > > > Art > > I guess I'll take option B Gloves off. goody. , as you don't bother to URL me to any more > explicit answers. I'm just supposed to accept your sage > judgments, based on > a 25 year black box with your self-interested labeling of the > ingredients(which include mercury -- bad sign). A URL to a professional code of ethics? I wouldn't do that, even to you ;) > > You've made some serious allegations, one might even say attempts at > character assassination vis-à-vis Kay. But when pressed, you fall > back on > elliptical remarks and wry wit. I've never met Kay and know nothing of his character. I only know the choices he has made. And if he was not asking to be taken very, very, very, very seriously as a voice of vision on matters of education and our children, I'd probably just be getting a kick out of his suped up graphics stuff. I would only be assassinating Kay's character if I accused him of actual conflict. I am not. The point is that this is a serious enough matter, and his claims of insight into these matters encompassing enough, that I should not be in a position where I have to give those kinds of matters a moment's thought. *He* has chosen to put me in a position where, as an adult, I cannot reasonably do otherwise. I quite rightly and reasonably resent that. Overexposure to mercury must have the effect of making one's common sense grotesquely large. Freakish common sense. Something one learns to live with, evenutally. Art

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Re: [Edu-sig] OK, time for 2.4
by Laura Creighton 25 Oct '04

25 Oct '04

In a message of Mon, 25 Oct 2004 11:37:05 PDT, Guido van Rossum writes: >> Interesting, help does not show up in the index of >> http://docs.python.org/tut/tut.html and a glance at the TOC leads me >> to believe that it is not mentioned there. How are people currently >> expected to know such things? >> >> Laura (who knows it only because Michael Hudson showed it to her one da >y.) > >It is in the Library Reference under built-in functions, but I agree >that it ought to be mentioned in the tutorial too. I've added a bug on >SF about this. You could have done the same. Ok, next time I will. Thank you. Laura > >-- >--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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Re: [Edu-sig] OK, time for 2.4
by Laura Creighton 25 Oct '04

25 Oct '04

In a message of Sun, 24 Oct 2004 12:07:05 PDT, Guido van Rossum writes: >> Even in a command window it's not working for me: >> >> C:\Documents and Settings\Kirby>d:\python24\python >> Python 2.4b1 (#57, Oct 15 2004, 15:23:38) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] o >n >> win32 >> Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >> >>> help(decimal) >> Traceback (most recent call last): >> File "<stdin>", line 1, in ? >> NameError: name 'decimal' is not defined >> >>> > >Ah, but you have to use quotes around the argument if you haven't >imported it yet -- this is a standard help() feature that you seem to >be unaware of and apparently missed in my example. > >-- >--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) Interesting, help does not show up in the index of http://docs.python.org/tut/tut.html and a glance at the TOC leads me to believe that it is not mentioned there. How are people currently expected to know such things? Laura (who knows it only because Michael Hudson showed it to her one day.)

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