Mailman 3 May 2006 - Edu-sig

Google Summer of Code proposal
by Johannes Woolard 06 May '06

06 May '06

Hiya, I have revised an earlier proposal I posted through google summer of code, and was advised to post it on here. I have stuck it on the web at http://users.ox.ac.uk/~orie1763/coder-python.pdf Very briefly it is a proposal for a very basic IDE supporting a semi-interactive tutorials (I believe a couple of people on this list saw my original proposal) It would be great if anybody interested could have a look over it and give me feedback - and if anybody would like to mentor it (or something similar) please ccould they get back to me Thanks, Johannes Woolard -- Johannes Woolard, Oriel College, Oxford OX1 4EW 07837880296 ox extn: 26611

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PySqueak: PataPata project with code on sourceforge
by Paul D. Fernhout 06 May '06

06 May '06

There's no going back now. :-) I just committed some code to SVN on sourceforge so the "PataPata" project is here to stay. http://sourceforge.net/projects/patapata/ (You can't easily get sourceforge to remove something once it has code, so I've held back till now, though I requested the project about ten days ago.) The sourceforge blurb is: """PataPata brings constructivism to the Python platform, inspired by Squeak Smalltalk, but going beyond it in a Pythonic and abstraction-oriented way. PataPata can mean "Python Abstractly Touchable Applications -- Personalizable And Teachable Anywhere". """ (I'll probably be reworking what the letters mean as an acronym with community feedback, that's just a first cut. :-) You can view the first proof of concept code for prototypes here: http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/patapata/PataPata/proof_of_concept_0… Essentially it is just a few lines of Python defining a Prototype class and putting up a prototype widget with a TK widget class as a parent. Even that has issues, but it is a first step, but I'm trying to follow a "release early and often" mantra. Likely the project folders will soon get reorganized as the project grows, but SVN makes that fairly painless to do. Please note that this PataPata project is intended for the vision of PySqueak I have been outlining here, focusing on taking *ideas* from Squeak and Self and moving them to Python, as well as trying to go *beyond* the ideas in a Pythonic and constructivist way (in a "burn the disk packs approach"). The guiding theme is intended to be on making tools compatible with unschooling or "free schooling". School affiliated people are welcome to participate too, of course, if they find these constructivist ideas of use in the classroom for education and want to discuss such ideas. Or even if, sigh, they want a place to put curriculum materials for the classroom directly related to PataPata. It seems even Grace Llewellyn is writing a book related to getting the most out of your time in school: :-) http://www.edweek.org/tm/news/instruction/2004/03/01/05grace.h15.html But, in any case, supporting mainstream classroom specific issues (e.g. grading) is not something I myself will prioritize or encourage. If anyone wants to set up another PySqueak type project to do more of a direct port of Squeak and Croquet to Python, as well as to focus more on any specific schooling-related issues faced by the current Shuttleworth initiative, then by all means, please do so. And no hard feelings if someone else gets paid to do that. I might even try to contribute constructively to such a project occasionally. :-) While I've been taking advantage of discussions on the edusig list at the start to get some ideas kicked around (and thank you all for your forbearance :-), I just created a patapata-discuss list at sourceforge https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/patapata-discuss (though it will take about a day to show up apparently), so I'll start posting new stuff to there once the existing threads wind down here. By the way, "Pata Pata" is means "touch touch", which I think is appropriate for a project focusing on constructivist and direct manipulation Self-like and Squeak-like ideas. See: http://songsforteaching.homestead.com/PWM2PataPata.html for the South African song by Miriam Makeba that inspired the name. (There is even a link to a starting snippet of the project theme song there, from the Putumayo world music CD series we listen to. :-) --Paul Fernhout

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MakeBot for Windows
by Winston Wolff 05 May '06

05 May '06

I have just released a Windows version of MakeBot, an IDE intended for students learning Python. It includes a very nice graphics/video game package based on PyGame. You can read all about it here: http://stratolab.com/misc/makebot/ -Winston ______________________________________________________ winston wolff - (646) 827-2242 - http://www.stratolab.com learning by creating - video game courses for kids in new york

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Petty Issue
by Chuck Allison 05 May '06

05 May '06

Hello edu-sig, I'm really sorry to waste your time, but this is the only place I know to go to get a quick answer. I have mentioned here before that I am teaching intermediate Python at Symantec in June. Since they merged with another company last year, they have some new red tape that disallows one-person companies like myself to do business with them (it seems I don't have enough liability insurance - true - I have none!). To get around the system, I have to, among other things, "sell" them a Python book with a CD in it. (Don't ask me why - this is bean counting mentality at its best). Anyway, I can't find a worthy book with a CD. Most are out of date or too simple. (I wish Martelli's books had CDs!) Even John Zelle's excellent book, with has an accompanying CD, is too basic for our needs (it's an ideal CS1 book, of course). So: do you know of a book with a CD that is intermediate, or... do you know of a stand-alone CD product that covers some meaty Python? Thanks, and again, sorry to interrupt more profitable discussion. -- Best regards, -- Chuck Allison

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Crunchy Frog (almost) ready for classroom use.
by Andre Roberge 05 May '06

05 May '06

The wonders of a good night sleep... Version 0.2.5 of Crunchy Frog has been release and is on sourceforge at the usual place (link below in this message). [snip] > > There are three main features left to implement: > > 1. add the possibility to load "non-local" html files. This might be > as easy as adding a couple of lines of code, using a module like > urllib. When I figure out how to do that, I'll be pestering authors > of existing Python tutorials to adapt them for use with Crunchy Frog > ;-) > > 2. Fix a major annoyance for "long" pages: at present, when executing > a code snippet, the page gets reloaded at the very top, even if the > "editor area" or "fake interpreter prompt" was at the bottom of the > page. I haven`t been able to find out how to do this using CherryPy. > This has been fixed. > 3. Being able to navigate in an arbitrary directory structure. Up > until now, I have had problems if the html files were not all in a > single directory. > [snip] > On 5/4/06, Andre Roberge <andre.roberge(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Version 0.1 of Crunchy Frog has been released. It can be found at > > https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=125834 > > > > Crunchy Frog allows to transform a "traditional" Python tutorial into > > an interactive session within your favourite web browser. Three > > "modes" of interaction are currently possible: > > 1. one-liner, similar to the typical instruction at the Python interpreter. > > 2. multi-line Python code, as entered in a traditional editor, and > > executed by Python. > > 3. Solutions to doctests, as described by Jeff Elkner in a previous post. > >

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New version "TNG" of StarLogo ( 3D & Visual & Blocks)
by francois schnell 04 May '06

04 May '06

Hello, In the "visual programming" theme, I've just seen that a new 3D and visual (though blocks) version of StarLog is available (a preview version now and a 1.0 this summer): http://education.mit.edu/starlogo-tng/ Some screencasts: http://education.mit.edu/starlogo-tng/tutorial-videos/ It's written in Java :( and the FAQ says this about the licence: ----- *Is StarLogo TNG open source? Can StarLogo TNG be open source?* StarLogo TNG is free for educational use, but it is not currently open source. We are considering an open source license in the future, but internal licensing issues and resources will determine that schedule. The previous version of StarLogo is being released soon under an open source license. ---- And the difference with Scratch: --- What is the difference between Scratch and StarLogo TNG? Both Scratch and StarLogo TNG share a common heritage with LogoBlocks, a tool to create programs for Crickets. The two tools are written from entirely separate code, but we do share ideas. The audiences are different for the two products as well. Scratch is primarily designed as a tool to make computational multimedia projects for kids, targeted at Computer Clubhouses. StarLogo TNG is designed for more formal education environments such as introductory programming classes, or subjects (such as biology, chemistry, physics, etc.) where modeling is an important part of the curriculum. They're both interesting tools, and you should check out Scratch when it becomes available. Scratch is built on Squeak. http://llk.media.mit.edu/projects/#scratch ---- francois

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PySqueak issues: image storage
by Paul D. Fernhout 04 May '06

04 May '06

In trying to further think through what would be involved in supporting Squeak-like (or just Smalltalk-like) capabilities for Python in constructivist education, on reflection, I think the single biggest issue is that of the Squeak/Smalltalk "image". There are lots of other issues, but I am now thinking those are more easily solvable by just programming, often using existing Python libraries, than this one, which is more reflective of deeper issues. For those of you unfamiliar with the notion of a Smalltalk "image", it is essentially this: you can pick "save image" from your running Squeak environment and the whole running vm's object memory is saved to one file. Then when you start up Squeak and specify your image file, everything is back the way you had it when you saved (in theory) -- windows, open files, open socket connections, everything. In practice, open socket connections and open files sometimes can't be reopened (the port may be in use for a server socket, or a server may be down for a client socket), files may have been deleted or locked and so can't be reopened, a database may have changed, and so on. (And making this work under the covers can be non-trivial.) But, as least, the system tries to put everything back the way it was, and it almost always does a perfect job for plain GUIs. What's more, you can bring this file to any machine on any OS and processor that runs a fairly similar version of Squeak (like moving Mac/PPC to GNU/Linux/AMD64), and just start it up and you are back where you saved. And here is the key point: you get all this for "free" when you work with Squeak. You generally don't have to use a "pickle" library yourself, or write object saving and loading code for your windows, or do anything like that. It just works. Why is the image so important for the novice user in a constructivist educational setting? If a learner is learning by building, then it stands to reason that tomorrow they would like to learn by building on top of what they have already built more often then they would want to start from scratch. Starting from scratch can be a good learning experience, no doubt, but it gets old if you do it over and over again. So, when a learner can save their image and reload it tomorrow, they are exactly where they left off. So, if they are in the midst of building a simulation by dragging graphical widgets around, then they just save it, and tomorrow there it is. And here is they key: they never had to write any saving or loading code to do this. And neither did the author of the underlying package they are using. This is a big thing IMHO. It lets the learner focus more on what they are doing without the distraction of "how can I save and load this". Now, in practice, Squeak does save and load things outside the image. It uses files to store code, communicates over sockets, uses databases, and so on. In some ways, using an external file to save, say, your email seems much safer than storing it just in an image (which is a binary file and could easily get corrupted). To do that, an application has to use some explicit form of representing objects as text and reading them back in itself. If you want to share a small part of your image, like just the simulation you wrote, then it makes sense to be able to export that part (preferably as text) and share it (most smalltalk have some support for this equivalent to pickle or xml object writing). So the image isn't everything. But for the basics of where windows are, what widgets are in them, and what dynamic objects exist in the environment, it does a great job. So, where is the Python PySqueak problem? The graphics widget set is the biggest issue (sockets, files, databases, etc. are hard, but simpler). Smalltalk are designed from the ground up to do this. In Squeak's case, all the widgets are native, so their state is defined purely by Smalltalk objects. In other Smalltalk which use native widgets, the issues are thought through at the beginning on how the windows will be created and then recreated on reloading an image and that part is usually hidden from the user. And how to figure out what native GUI widgets are up on the screen and how to save that and reload it, all transparently to the user, is a non-trivial thing, and it varies from widget set to widget set. Since Python wants to be platform agnostic, and since there are a lot of widget sets out there (x, wx, tk, swt, swing, gtk, qt, mac flavors, mozilla and other web browser widgets, etc.), plus a lot of code written for them, that means a bit of a problem. I think in theory one could write widget set savers and reloaders that know enough about a specific widget set to walk the tree of displayed widgets and rebuild it. But, that is a lot of work that needs to be done for each widget set. And then, ideally, that all needs to work with existing widget using code not written to use a well designed library that hides these reloading problems. So, I think that would be the biggest issue to solve -- giving Python an image capacity. It doesn't have to be solved because one could always continue with the Python assumption that applications will be written to save and load their state. One could also build that into specific educational constructivist widget sets like an eToys clone. But it remains a mismatch in philosophy. This isn't a plug for C++, but consider: http://www.whysmalltalk.com/quotes/index.htm "Smalltalk is the best Smalltalk around" [on using C++ to code dynamic language idioms more appropriately done in Lisp or Smalltalk] - Bjarne Stroustrup Which is meant more or less as a reminder that languages have things they do well, and not so, well, and philosophies and communities built around them. So, while it is possible to ape Squeak Smalltalk in Python (including an image), is that worth doing? If you want everything Smalltalk (or Squeak) has to offer, then you can use Smalltalk (or Squeak) and live with other limitations (it's license, stability, and world view). I'm not sure there is that much value in reinventing that wheel. And it's also probably much easier to just put a Python parser into Squeak than reinvent Squeak on Python. So I continue to think what is interesting (and challenging) about the notion of a PySqueak is to try to understand what the core issues are that Squeak tries to solve (in this case, making it easy to save and load current state of an object system, including that of GUIs) and think of Python oriented approaches to do that. Again though, the notion of having a Python image could be rejected as a goal. Even Squeak does use external files for various tasks. When the outside world changes the inside world in the image gets out of date. More and more community-oriented applications (including Squeak's Croquet shared 3D world, but also others down to simple web applets or html forms) rely on storing state in outside servers or across peers and so need to reload from the network on startup anyway in practice. Keeping everything in one image mixes application and user data, and also often leads to an unmanaged growth in complexity as the image accumulates clutter. When the Squeak VM changes, one needs to clone the image into a new format, and in practice, end users aren't going to want to do that with their old images and just start over from scratch, filing and out code or application state. Squeak stores its source code history and other changes outside the image in a couple of text files (in part to rebuild the image if it crashes or gets corrupt). Even within the Squeak community, there are constant pressures to be able to build an image from a textual representation (something not trivial to do, and historically resisted by the main people in the project, perhaps out of sentimentality? or compassion? as the Squeak image has roots as a living thing back more than 20 years). However, even with pressure to be able to build an image from Scratch, something every Python program essentially does by running from *.py files, I'm sure almost no one in the Squeak community would want to lose saving and loading their current image. So anyway, that's the outline of one of the biggest Squeak->Python issues IMHO. And, I'd caution, it is one that is easy to dismiss as unimportant if you do not have experience working with images, the same way it is easy to dismiss something like garbage collection as unimportant if you are comfortable working in C++. Still, you can patch garbage collection onto C++ (in an awkward fashion) and one could probably patch images onto Python somehow (if that was desired). It's mostly a matter of considering how images interact with the Python glue philosophy, and also, in this case, in an educational constructivist setting, where I think saving state easily is a big win for everybody, especially in a classroom setting often with very short time periods for doing a bit of exploring and constructing, but potentially lots of them over the course of months. The default right now is every Python application must invent its own way of saving its state. So, should that be revisited? Or perhaps, this instead points to a need to improve pickle or create a community-wide widget reloading standard? It occurs to me, just now, at the end, as I revise this, what the Python way might be. :-) And it is to write its state as a Python text file! Something I need to muse over. :-) --Paul Fernhout Learning by writing. :-)

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ANN: 2006 Python training May/Aug/Nov, San Francisco
by w chun 03 May '06

03 May '06

*** 50% DISCOUNT to STUDENTS/TEACHERS *** Dear fellow list members, Below is the announcement we've just made this morning about our upcoming advanced Python course, May 17-19, 2006. This advanced course will be offered again in Nov 2006. In Aug 2006, we will have another intensive introduction to Python course. Please forward this msg to anyone whom you think would be interested or would benefit from Python training courses. This includes Plone, Zope, and Mailman groups as well. http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2006-May/339577.html We apologize in advance if you feel this is a commercial and off-topic message. We limit such correspondence to once every few months. Trying to help Python take over the world.... -Wesley - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Core Python Programming", Prentice Hall, (c)2007,2001 http://corepython.com wesley.j.chun :: wescpy-at-gmail.com python training and technical consulting cyberweb.consulting : silicon valley, ca http://cyberwebconsulting.com

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HTConsole
by Ian Bicking 02 May '06

02 May '06

Thinking about some of these discussions, I decided to explore building a Python console app, available as a web page. No sandboxing; it's intended to be run on localhost. It's still pretty rough and doesn't have a ton of neat features. The file management is pretty weak, and doctesting is just stubbed out. Anyway, you can get it with: easy_install HTConsole Then run "htconsole" and a web page should pop up for your interactive pleasure. The ideal is to make Python objects live and editable through the web page. For instance, if you define a function it will be listed with its body in the web page, and you can edit the function in place. Unfortunately it's easy to run out of room, so I might have to explore other ways of displaying information. Also, there's a bunch of problems I've had -- like how to get the body of functions, and how (if it is possible at all) to update a function in place, just to start with. But anyway, with some imagination maybe you can see what's interesting about it, and maybe point out directions for further work that might be more fruitful from your own perspective. -- Ian Bicking | ianb(a)colorstudy.com | http://blog.ianbicking.org

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Re: [Edu-sig] Learning Python via a browser: looking for a name
by Laura Creighton 02 May '06

02 May '06

In a message of Mon, 01 May 2006 09:33:46 PDT, "kirby urner" writes: >Starting to sound a lot like Croquet, which is peer to peer. Dunno >based on what protocol. TeaTime (written by David Reed). Laura

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