Mailman 3 June 2007 - Edu-sig

Python for Halloween
by kirby urner 21 Oct '07

21 Oct '07

Something about using 'ghost' in place of 'self' in a Shell class (allusion to anime as well). Maybe I did something like this last year (having deja vu again). But I'm realizing edu-sig is no longer a preferred venue for my curriculum writing. I'd rather huddle with MIT, Bruce Sherwood, Alan Kay and play *against* Arthur's team. Arthur, you make too many enemies too quickly and too easily. Even more, I'm into my Portland Knowledge Lab (PKL) business (gotta pay that rent today) and want to make lots of Python and Synergetics teaching cartoons for HDTV (my Saturday Morning meme), with lots of brand name sponsors. But here is not the place to brainstorm in safety. Too many prying eyes and self-appointed kibbitzers. So I'm actually resigning this time. Don't expect me back any time soon. Probably won't be tracking either, at least not with any frequency. For me, it's a tilt towards private lists and closed source development (not exclusively -- I'm still a big supporter of a strong public sector). I'm learning why open source is a bad idea sometimes. I've talked to Stallman about this, though he probably doesn't remember -- I was in his audience in Portland and asked about situations when "they" simply *don't deserve* your best code. But I think more it's a matter of not wanting to show unfinished work (a big no no in Fuller's self discipline, according to 'Critical Path' I think it was). Kirby

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More OLPC chatter
by kirby urner 02 Jul '07

02 Jul '07

Here's a floating email fragment >Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:54:09 -0400 >From: "Walter Bender" <walter.bender@...> >Subject: OLPC software: our first release and beyond. >To: "OLPC Devel" <devel@...>, sugar@... >One important feature where we have made little progress is the View >Source key. We decided to build the user experience?and the core >Activity base?in Python, in large part, to facilitate the children's >direct access to modifiable code. We are moving to the latest stable >version of Python as part of our Fedora Core 7 migration; however, we >have yet to put enough resources into building a suitable development >environment for children. This remains an important goal, but not one >we can reasonably meet for our first release. The incorporation of the >context-sensitive spirit of "view source" into all Activities is >another area where we lag. Bolstering these efforts is second only to >stabilizing the current system. We look forward to the possibility of >Guido van Rossum, Python's creator, leading these efforts in the fall. Always interesting to see where some people are hoping to invest some of our BDFL's precious clock cycles... Stepping back for a moment, one has to realize this is a different shop talk, as we typically look at source code as text files, modifiable yes, but not while running as binaries, which are different files entirely, derived from said text files by various processes. Some of this text is expressed in pure Python, but a lot of what *runs* under Python in modular form is actually written in something else, as is Python itself. A whole different text editor might be more appropriate in that case, or at least different plug-ins (the Eclipse model). The trend is to target a shared VM and play freely with other language communities, swapping whatever works in inter-pluggable arrangements. One way around this shortcoming of Sugar's is to suggest that once kids are mature enough to eyeball the kind of convoluted source code required to keep the likes of Sugar alive, it might be time to transition to a more standard model laptop that doesn't push the bleeding edge so hard. Adults need to focus on stable developer environments like Wing's or whatever (or like IDLE for starters). So at your bat mitzvah or other ceremony, you maybe trade in your much loved OLPC XO (and your teddy bear), and move up to something more expensive, with a more traditional source code treatment (anyone ready for C yet?). Or just start using more of those legacy TuxLab desktops, running a variety of distros (Ubuntu Studio might draw some kids, more because they want to study graphical arts than they want to do lexical programming). Basically, I'm somewhat Kusasian in outlook: go with immersive up to a point, then take a break and study some classic combos e.g. emacs + bash + gcc. Drop all the way down to machine language even, coming up through MMIX enroute to Python Part Deux (or "snake guts revisited").[1] At some Coming of Age level, we no longer want to shield kids from the messy reality of *no* single governing paradigm at all levels and the old immersive environment turns out to be one fish tank among many. In retrospect, those early experiences with special namespaces for children will remain a comfort (we hope), and some will elect to professionally teach them to a next generation, and/or invent new ones (already the case, so a next iteration). Kirby [1] http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2007/06/techie-chatter.html

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CS0 course
by Andre Roberge 01 Jul '07

01 Jul '07

Hi everyone, As most people on this list are aware, I am very much interested in promoting Python in education (think rur-ple and crunchy). However, I feel I could do more locally and want to do more but for this I need a bit of help and guidance. To explain things properly, I have to make a small digression (which, I hope, won't be construed as spam ;-) to explain the background. In my day job, I am President of a tiny but wonderful university (Université Sainte-Anne, www.usainteanne.ca) in Nova Scotia, Canada. Sainte-Anne is an undergraduate university (400 students, Faculty/student ratio: 1:10) offering programs in French Immersion, Education, Business Administration, Bachelors of Arts (majors: English, French, History), as well as a general B.Sc. (3 year degree, no major). While it is located in a primarily English Canadian province, Sainte-Anne is arguably the *best* place in North America to study French. Our summer French immersion program (two 5-week terms) attract a total of 550 students (more than during the regular year, with every available bed in residence occupied!), about 125 of which come from the U.S. and the rest from elsewhere in Canada; we have the longest waiting list of any other similar programs offered in Canada. (enough bragging ...) We do not offer a course in computer programming. Business administration student have a requirement to take two semester long courses in "computer science" ("informatique", in French) - the courses offered are one introduction to some standard business software (read MS word and eXcel primarily) and one course on creation of web pages, etc. Not exactly what I consider to be computer science... I'd like add a CS0 course (intro to computer science [read: programming] for non cs students) that would introduce Python. Since the courses we offer are all in French, the number of available resources is rather limited... As I'm the only one that knows about programming around, I'd have to teach it. While our students are usually fluent in English, we do strive to provide a completely French learning environment; as President, I could not give a bad example by assigning a textbook (or other main resource) written in English. Since I've never taught a programming course in my life (and only took one, a fortran course, some 30 years ago), I can't draw very much on previous experience. Because of the demands of my job (read:fairly frequent travelling), I can't plan on teaching 2 1.5 hours (or 3 one-hour) lectures a week, every week. I'd like to have a course that could combine classroom teaching combined with small projects that could be done in a self-study mode (with me available to answer questions by email). Something half-way between an independent study course and a traditional lecture-based one. Does anyone have experience with teaching a CS0 course structured like this? Are you aware of any resources that I could use, mostly in terms of assignments idea? (note: they have to be either in French, or things that are short enough that I could translate them without having to invest too much time) Thanks for your time reading this message, and I welcome any suggestion you may have. André Roberge

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More rambling about my new snake habitat
by kirby urner 28 Jun '07

28 Jun '07

So demoing MVC the way I teach it for sa: requires an X3D viewer, POV-Ray, and VPython, all for visualizations of the same core model, implemented using stickworks components: vertex-vectors + connect-the-dots edges. Faces get added at a more outer layer, in one of the "toyz" modules (I don't use them at all in the VPython version, in some ways the most primitive). Faces are, however, core to the basic data structure, whether or not they are shown (typical of geometry formats, OFF in particular). http://shape.cs.princeton.edu/benchmark/ Fortunately, Ubuntu's Synaptic Package Manager makes it really easy to search and install packages over the Internet, including FreeWRL 1.19.5 (it does X3D in addition to VRML so my demo is working). http://freewrl.sourceforge.net/ When I first opened the box, I ran the update manager, which seems to appear periodically on the top horizontal bar (the period is a user setting). A massive upgrade ensued (which used to result in a crash on reboot when these puppies first shipped -- problem fixed), including a download/install of Python 2.5, abetting the two earlier Pythons already housed. But it's a minimal install. Using Synaptic, I added IDLE with Tk, which automatically added itself to the main Applications Menu under Programming (little trowel icon, Python's double snake for IDLE itself, which by default does *not* launch a subprocess (something to change)). VPython likewise came through Synaptic (version 3.2.1-4build1). There's a site-packages at /usr/local/python2.5/site-packages, but by default it belongs to root and staff (a group). I don't find the staff group when I go to administer users and groups. As a lowly user, I'm feeling /home/kirby is where I'm encouraged to keep my .py files. Do .pth files work in Linux like in Windows? Speaking of Windows, I noticed my connectingthedots.pdf looked kinda crummy on Ubuntu, like the fonts weren't right. Sure enough, Microsoft's weirdo brands of Arial needed to go in the suitcase along with the rest of the graphics, increasing the file size but improving the view. The ppt (not available at my ftp site) opened almost flawlessly in OpenOffice impress. I just needed to tweak a few of the slides a little, and resave. But that means it'll be hard to just swap the file back and forth between platforms -- which adds to my sense that it's frozen, at least for now. Hypertoons also work great (see my Youtube examples). I'll be able to show VPython randomly drawing transforming polyhedra with two play heads (two threads), while rotating the Beryl cube. One of my geek friends came by for lunch today and I was able to do that thing Miguel de Icaza demoed at OSCON like two years ago: a DVD (in my case 'Idiocracy') playing in a window that folds around the edge of the rotating cube, half a window in each of two desktops. Meaningless eye candy I realize. Very iPhone. Miguel shows off many more recent xgl type effects in his blog: http://tirania.org/blog/ xgl: http://images.google.com/images?q=xgl&hl=en&um=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title Kirby

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Re: [Edu-sig] Wikis w. Math Support
by Laura Creighton 27 Jun '07

27 Jun '07

Mediawiki -- what wikipedia uses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Formula Laura In a message of Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:43:50 EDT, Jay Bloodworth writes: >Not necessarily python related, but perhaps: > >Can anyone suggest some wiki software that includes support for math >markup for nicely formatted expressions, preferably with some simpler >and server-sider than MathML. Bonus points if it also supports simple >syntax for generating graphs of equations. Double bonus if it includes >good access control features. > >Thanks, >Jay > >_______________________________________________ >Edu-sig mailing list >Edu-sig(a)python.org >http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

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Wikis w. Math Support
by Jay Bloodworth 27 Jun '07

27 Jun '07

Not necessarily python related, but perhaps: Can anyone suggest some wiki software that includes support for math markup for nicely formatted expressions, preferably with some simpler and server-sider than MathML. Bonus points if it also supports simple syntax for generating graphs of equations. Double bonus if it includes good access control features. Thanks, Jay

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More of Kirby talking to the water cooler...
by kirby urner 27 Jun '07

27 Jun '07

Okeedohkee... so I got that Dell Inspiron E1505 I was talking about, ships with Ubuntu installed. I customized it to have the Nvidia 256M graphics card, plus 1G RAM, only 80 GB storage (so not too heavy, inexpensive but not cheap). Turns out Nvidia was a good choice, as you can just check a box in Restricted Driver Manager, apt-get beryl, and voila, that rotating cube of desktops, VPython on one face, slides on another... wiggly windows. I've expanded my slides at http://www.4dsolutions.net/presentations/ connectingthedots.pdf adding in some of that grossology stuff I mentioned. The idea here is very simple, as I was just explaining to this philosopher in Seattle I know. Especially young kids have an interest in scatalogical content and feel relieved when they have permission, in an academic context, to indulge that interest. The vehicle is Mad Libs, a genre of fill in the blank stories, which you can just make up yourself. It's more just creative writing. But it's also a triple-quote segment of Python with $fill_in_the_blanks to be later populated from a Python dictionary (another segment provides promptings e.g. "Give me a verb please: " or whatever raw_input). That's all just a small part of the talk, although string.Template has a continuing role when we turn to more mathy forms of output, such as scene description language for POV-Ray or X3D. Which reminds me, I need to get an X3D plugin working, or find a standalone application. [ blub blub blub -- fills cup with water ] OK time to get back to my cube and resume chatting with fellow cube farmers. Kirby

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All quiet on the western front...
by kirby urner 24 Jun '07

24 Jun '07

Mighty quiet around here... How 'bout I toss up some percentage of the slides I've been arranging, in some sort of sort (hopefully sequential), for discussion purposes.[1] Let me just do that now [elevator music...] OK, special to the edu-sig inner circle then: http://www.4dsolutions.net/presentations/connectingthedots.pdf (1.48 Meg) Comments? Also note: my plan is to showcase on Ubunta I hope with Beryl working, as I'd like to swap cube faces for demos, interspersed with the static stuff above. That sounds like a lot of CPU cycles (lots to go wrong) so yeah, it'll be a workout. But first the new Dell has to show up to be dinked with. Order tracking says it's still in production. But hey, this is Sunday and not everyone works 24/7, not even we geeks.[2] Happy summer solstice all, Kirby [1] like most road show veterans, I always have too many slides, then have this task of whittling down, to make something sharp and to the point, appropriate to my audience. Like, some versions of this would go more into my remark that younger kids tend to welcome scatology, now a sub-branch of grossology. Question: is squeak too squeaky clean? [2] if you didn't see my 'Nightmare Alley' review, nor have a clue as to its relevance, here's the blog link: http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2007/06/nightmare-alley-movie-review.html

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Choice quote re OLPC
by kirby urner 20 Jun '07

20 Jun '07

Regarding a pilot OLPC project in South Africa: """ Q: How will the laptop be used in the formal context of the classroom? There's no curriculum. There's no training programme. Teachers will sink or swim. We can show them the e-Toys and other programmes on the laptop, but when we leave, they're on their own. If the goal is to create a nation of scientists and engineers, I don't think we've got 1% of that with this. Mark Shuttleworth with the Kusasa.org programme is tackling that need. We're hoping that workbooks and worksheets will come out of that. He's also putting his money into Python and Smalltalk. """ http://allafrica.com/stories/200706180999.html?page=2

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More re Imagery
by kirby urner 17 Jun '07

17 Jun '07

I liked how Jerritt Collord (collord.net) started our Adventures in Open Source course for out three teen guinea pigs. This was a pilot staged in West Precinct, Hillsboro Police Department, Saturday Academy providing the instructors (that'd be Jerritt and myself). Summer of 2004. He started with tcp/ip right off the bat. Kind of the polices' worst nightmare, in a way, to have someone who knows about packet sniffing showing wannabe hackers how to sniff packets, how to dissect these little capsules with payloads, looking for pathologies. But that was the whole point: we're showing you the ropes, as future pioneers, developers, and maintainers of the Internet, not as future criminals. You'll need the same skills. You'll need to build up your internal model of how it all works, making it rich in detail, a readily extensible model should your job require going even deeper into the internals of ethernet frames or whatever. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet So like of course (!) you need to understand about tcp/ip, just as police do (Heuston, exFBI and our liason in HPD, helped run a computer forensics lab plus ran that speakers' program, CRIME, at the Oregon Zoo). This is where 'Warriors of the Net' comes in, a great little cartoon modeling tcp/ip as an accessible visualization involving little trucks in tubes. This visualization likewise connects to container shipping for more adult content, per one of those high quality analyst talks @ OSCON (Nick Gall's): http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=1675 So here's a logical flow I could see using in a standard public school curriculum: Begin: Google Earth or similar service -> lots of geography talk about lat/long, time zones etc. -> lots of infrastructure talk including about container shipping -> about the Internet (cartoons) -> about tcp/ip (more cartoons) -> moving to CP4E languages (e.g. Python) and xml-rpc i.e. let's now interact with some web services (hands on, not just talk) Exhibit 1: A Perl version, for passing an address on the command line: #!/usr/bin/perl use XMLRPC::Lite; use Data::Dumper; use strict; use warnings; my $where = shift @ARGV or die "Usage: $0 \"111 Main St, Anytown, KS\"\n"; my $result = XMLRPC::Lite -> proxy( 'http://rpc.geocoder.us/service/xmlrpc' ) -> geocode( $where ) -> result; print Dumper $result; Exhibit 2: And now in Python, just lazily interactively in IDLE for starters: >>> from xmlrpclib import Server >>> server = Server('http://rpc.geocoder.us/service/xmlrpc') >>> result = server.geocode("1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC") >>> result [{'city': 'Washington', 'prefix': '', 'suffix': 'NW', 'zip': 20502, 'number': 1600, 'long': -77.037683999999999, 'state': 'DC', 'street': 'Pennsylvania', 'lat': 38.898747999999998, 'type': 'Ave'}] or we might look at the actual XML that goes to the server: >>> print xmlrpclib.dumps(("1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC", ), 'server.geocode') <?xml version='1.0'?> <methodCall> <methodName>server.geocode</methodName> <params> <param> <value><string>1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC</string></value> </param> </params> </methodCall> Kirby

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