Mailman 3 June 2005 - Edu-sig

Re: Networking in DOSEMU
by Lee Harr 24 Jul '05

24 Jul '05

>I want to ask something not concerning python. Here, you give yourself an excellent hint that this is the wrong place to ask this question. >actualy i want to know how can i connect to my novel server thru dosemu. Here, I am wondering if you mean Novell. Searching is facilitated by correct spelling of the thing you seek. Let's take a look... http://www.google.com/search?q=dosemu+mailing+list Strangely, not the first hit on google, but the 3rd hit looks pretty good: http://dosemu.sourceforge.net/mailinglist.html good luck! _________________________________________________________________ Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.com/

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Re: [Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 22, Issue 26
by ajsiegel＠optonline.net 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

Everyone inclined to do so - please *do* ignore the following: I had written - > All there is left to do is to assert that whatever this >impact is, it is the intended impact, and then that this >impact fulfills some important learning mission. Illusion >becomes reality, I guess I need to ask for assistance from the resident philosophy scholar/scholars. In that I suspect what I am saying/ think I am observing is the oldest of stories. There is nothing in fact new under the sun, except the pace of things, and therefore the ability to observe these kinds of phenomena occurring, as they occur, and when one has enough worldliness under one's belt to understand the dynamics. Is this what the philosophical school of Deconstructionists was pointing to in terms of how "reality" comes to be defined? I suspect there is some connection. But sorry for going more than usually OT. Art

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Re: [Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 22, Issue 26
by Arthur 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

Not be beat a dead horse, but the truth is I don't think Alice is dead yet - the Prentice-Hall text book will probably rescue it a bit from obscurity, and maybe do more for it than that. Pausch always has a chance as long as he stays out of the way of an environment of a true meritocracy. In that sense I think he has found the correct arena to make his mark - after years of groping toward it. Carnegie Mellon University\ Entertainment Technology Center \ Design Director Randy Pausch: >>"I hasten to point out that >>the number of computer science majors in America last year >>declined by 23 percent" I am not surprised to see Pausch bring up this statistic in connection with his promotion of Alice. There is a fine line between promoting one's work and charlatanism. I have my own opinion on which side of the line Pausch is on in presenting Alice as an connected to and as an Antidote for this statistical reality. >>But this is much more advanced than Logo was, >>to the point where it can be used for a full semester course at the >>college level. Logo "was". Cute. Alice could in fact be used for a full semester course at the college level, as long as it imposed. But when given a choice between working with Alice (when it was promoting itself as a virtual world building tool) and Panda3d, exactly 100% of the students chose Panda3d. Perhaps has something to do with the fact that Alice is no longer promoting itself as a virtual world building tool. College level education, in general, still has too many merit forces at work. But where Pausch is headed with Alice, there is true difficulty in distinguishing between the illusion of learning and learning. Or the illusion is good enough for most purposes - when the goals of exposing children to technology remain as vague as they are being allowed to remain. I am sure that exposure to Alice in an enforced curricula *does* have a measurable impact. All there is left to do is to assert that whatever this impact is, it is the intended impact, and then that this impact fulfills some important learning mission. Illusion becomes reality, I was heartened to see that in a current thread on python-list in response to a poster's request for guidance about programming exposure for young folks, David Handy's book was mentioned, Logo mentioned a number of times, Squeak was mentioned - but Alice was not. But it ain't over until its over. And I don't believe we have heard the last of Alice yet. Art

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Re: [Edu-sig] Computer programming is fun retry
by Richard Ballard 28 Jun '05

28 Jun '05

Hi, Thought I'd try this again since I didn't send it in text, it didn't post correctly Rich Ballard Original message: I am the 8th grade teacher who has used David's Computer programming is fun book in class. I teach at MVU middle school in Swanton, Vermont. I want to add my voice to what a great book it is for beginning programming. I'm not a programmer but have dabbled in it a little here and there with BASIC and some college courses. This book made it quite simple for me to teach and for the kids to learn. As an introductory course, I believe it touched on a lot of topics that will help the kids in getting prepared to take more advanced courses. And for those who don't, it was helpful in their development of logical thinking skills, math skills, and just to help them to understand what computer programming is and what it entails to write a simple computer program. This can be taught as a self taught course if you had a young son or daughter you wanted to introduce to programming or as a class. As I said, I did the latter, I usually did some introductory information with the whole class then sent them to the computers to work through a chapter. The quizzes at the end of each chapter are great for keeping scores for the kids in a traditional classroom. David has also been great at helping if I ever got stuck or needed an idea either by phone or email. I highly recommend you give this book a try. I think it is a great resource for kids in the middle level or lower high school level or anyone who has never done any programming. If any one has any questions, please email me or see David's web site: http://www.handysoftware.com/cpif/ Sincerely, Rich Ballard rballard(a)pivot.net

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Mission accomplished
by urnerk＠qwest.net 28 Jun '05

28 Jun '05

OK, my talk is behind me. I'll give myself a pat on the back for getting through all 30 slides, plus doing four demos, within the allotted hour, with time for questions (there was only one question). I forgot to visit Sloane's On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences though. I was going to enter 1,12,42,92,162 and show how the resulting page links back to one of mind. Oh well. Plus I've lost my fleece (the sweater I wore this morning, and shed in some room...). My demos: 1. POV-Ray animation of Maira kicking a soccer ball (generated from a spreadsheet sent me by a physicist at the University of Nebraska); 2. my rational number type doing a continued fraction ([1,1,1,1,1,1...]); 3. totatives of n generating multiplication and addition tables; 4. the VPython hypertoon. The audience was pretty small (15? more?), as they tend to be on a sunny day after two marathon days of talks. They guy from CERN was there. A Swedish student drew up alongside later, to say he really liked what I had to say. I severely jet lagged. I'm sitting in a big conference room waiting for a keynote address, just barely keeping my eyes open. The Zope stuff is really big here this year, gets the biggest audiences. Next year, Europython will be at CERN in Switzerland. Kirby -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .

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Kirby calling Andre
by urnerk＠qwest.net 28 Jun '05

28 Jun '05

Hey Andre, I'm feeling disconsolate because I missed your talk yesterday: http://www.python-in-business.org/ep2005/talk.chtml?talk=4345&track=774 I didn't recognize it from the title, was looking for the word RUR-PLE and when I didn't find it, stupidly came to the conclusion you'd changed your plans about speaking. I should have just gone by name (duh). Now I'm sitting here listening to two gents next to me recount talks they'd been to. I heard a fairly detailed recap of your presentation (for which I'm grateful -- alerted me to my error), but I'd much rather meet with you in person and maybe learn more of your approach directly from you. I don't know what you look like. I'll be scanning name tags in earnest. I'm slated to do my talk at 4 PM. My jet lag is pretty severe (I doubt I slept at all last night), but I'm sure I can hold it together until at least 5 PM. After that, I don't have to stay coherent. Kirby -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .

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Edu-sig Digest, Vol 22, Issue 26
by Arthur 28 Jun '05

28 Jun '05

Kirby writes - >You've taken aim at bloated, graphics-intensive environments (like Alice) >that insulate students from learning any real programming, giving them >instead some dumbed down command set and a lot of gee whiz razzle-dazzle. >No real maturity develops. Yes and no, in terms of what motivates my hysterias. My objection to projects like Alice is nothing more specific, really, than my subjective sense of where it is coming from, what motivates it, and its level of sincerity and integrity. It is difficult both to defend such subjective assessments, and to back away from them. When the stakes are as I imagine them to be - that is. There are plenty of areas in which I am willing to be kind. Or at least silent. This area - education, technology, and children - ain't one of them. Art

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Re computer programming is fun
by Richard Ballard 27 Jun '05

27 Jun '05

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re Guido's talk at Europython
by urnerk＠qwest.net 27 Jun '05

27 Jun '05

So I attended Guido's 'Why I Invented Python' talk in conference room VV today (Swedes like V and K above other letters, it seems to me). I learned quite a bit of history from this talk. He paid a lot of tribute to ABC (a language for non-programmers needing to write programs) for being inspirational, but he also learned from its failures, and its "world-wide non-adoption." Python would be different (and it was). Whereas ABC was for non-professional programmers, Python was designed from the ground up to be a tool for pro programmers. It was also meant to be a project one person could implement, so Guido dropped certain features of ABC, even if he liked them, if the implementation was hairy (e.g. type inferencing). Chief among ABC's features that he wanted to keep: the interactive prompt. Indeed, this is a feature of Python that newcomers to the language often say they most appreciate (even if they've programmed before -- immediate feedback is a great way to attain mastery relatively quickly). [ In my own case, coming from dBase and its "dot prompt" (and previously APL) I'd come to take such interactivity for granted, and probably would never have invested in Python had it been lacking this advantageous feature. ] I hadn't realized he first developed Python on a Fat Mac, but always with the intent to make it cross-platform, i.e. to run on Amoeba, the OS he was working on at the time, and Unix, the production OS at work. Python was first conceived as a scripting language for Amoeba, something to fill the gap between the shell and C programming. He looked at Perl but found it rather non-portable (it took a Unix environment for granted, at least at that point). Nor had I fully appreciated that, although the architecture was OO from the beginning, the capability for users to add their own classes came a few months later. The fact that types and classes weren't well integrated at first traces to user classes being "second class citizens" at first. There's an emphasis on newcomers to Python this year: neopytes, they're being called. Guido helped launch that track. Every available seat in VV was taken. Kirby -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .

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Re: [Edu-sig] Computer Programming is Fun! Beginning ComputerProgramming with Python
by urnerk＠qwest.net 27 Jun '05

27 Jun '05

Congrats on getting this done! Kirby Original Message: ----------------- From: David Handy david(a)handysoftware.com Date: Sat, 25 Jun 2005 22:34:53 -0400 To: edu-sig(a)python.org Subject: [Edu-sig] Computer Programming is Fun! Beginning ComputerProgramming with Python Hi fellow EDU-SIGer's - -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .

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