Mailman 3 April 2009 - Edu-sig

xturtle online via processing.js !?
by Jurgis Pralgauskis 27 Sep '12

27 Sep '12

Hi, I am struggling around with interactive online py tutorials with https://launchpad.net/projects/intro-to-code (ith might become securely sandboxed soon, as pypy made it possible http://blog.sandbox.lt/en/WSGI%20and%20PyPy%20sandbox :) but one more thing is I'd like to let access xturtle functionality online - one possible way could be triggering tkinter to save its canvas to ps, and then convert them with imagemagic and show via web (animated gif or static) - but if pyjamas can render GUI for js (http://www.google.lt/search?&q=pyjamas+python ), mayby there is a way to **translate turtle commands to processing.js analogues** http://ejohn.org/blog/processingjs/ would it be difficult -- how do you think? -- Jurgis Pralgauskis tel: 8-616 77613; jabber: jurgis(a)akl.lt; skype: dz0rdzas; Don't worry, be happy and make things better ;) http://sagemath.visiems.lt

4 6

another edu-sig page textbook (suggesting to AR)
by kirby urner 02 May '09

02 May '09

http://www.skylit.com/mathandpython.html I have desk review copy, think many will appreciate the quasi-seamless blend of old and gnu world typographies, i.e. sigma and set notation, with concepts of iterator, types, functions etc. Reminiscent of 'Concrete Mathematics' though less difficult and explicitly Python based. For those training to read algebra, higher math, this is a friendly introduction (no cartoons or comics though -- gets you prepared for the somber dryness of the ambient literature). Kirby

6 13

old macdonald had a farm (coroutines for noobs like me)
by kirby urner 26 Apr '09

26 Apr '09

""" On the Farm: (Python 3 -- 3to2 easy) for David Beazley, the gratitude, who wanted something more useful than Fibonacci numbers See: http://oubiwann.blogspot.com/2009/04/generators-and-coroutines.html (my comments appended) """ def coroutine(target): """ used to decorate generators we plan to use as coroutines """ def initialize(*args, **kwargs): thegen = target(*args, **kwargs) next(thegen) return thegen return initialize @coroutine def screening(target, farmanimals): var = "" while True: var = (yield) print("I am a %s" % var) if var in farmanimals: target.send(var) @coroutine def process(): while True: var = (yield) print("Farm animal %s is being processed." % var) def test(): """ >>> I am a cow Farm animal cow is being processed. I am a jackalope I am a pig Farm animal pig is being processed. I am a monkey """ onthefarm = ["cow","pig","chicken"] p2 = process() p1 = screening(p2, onthefarm) p1.send("cow") p1.send("jackalope") p1.send("pig") p1.send("monkey") if __name__ == "__main__": test()

1 0

Admiring 'Hello World!' (Manning)
by kirby urner 23 Apr '09

23 Apr '09

I'm enjoying the state of the art with this one, am tempted to get the PDF (there's a mail in coupon). This father son team, Warren and Carter Sande, explore Python 2.5 in dialog, taking plenty of time to clear up confusions, not skipping over the odd bits, like integer division, and the fact that we're naming, like taking, not stuffing stockings (talking about variables) though we're quite open to Stocking objects (however named). The author "plays dumb" a little, wearing these "I know nothing about the future" glasses in the opening readings, suggesting we get the Python directly from Manning as if the future had never happened. This is excellent design, as the Manning version comes with some other goodies, is customized, is ready to run. The preface explains it: we used to put a CD in the back, but these days publishers favor using the Internet. Yep, that's very true. However, later on in the book, it's very clear the authors know there's a Python 3.0, and they gently hint at some of the differences. There's no big deal about it, just a fun XX engineer with a bug in her ear (in both ears apparently as it's there no matter which way she's turned -- well illustrated). The character that's really original is grandma in bunny slippers, the former Pong queen, geek of the old skool. She remembers when we did it all in 7K. We've all met this guy at parties, but having her be a friendly grandma is a stroke of genius I reckon. At the BOF at the last Pycon I was proclaiming Pygame "pretty hard" in the sense of "low level". Which it is, floats just above that C++ SDK whatever it's called, SDL right? In contrast: GameMaker, with a cult following in Oregon. We have play-offs, teams, a statewide festival. The problem with GameMaker by itself is it's immersive, like Alice, one of those "live in my own reality" twilight zones with no real world applications. Python, in contrast, is usable on the job. So if it's possible to dip into game-like experiences while developing as a professional non-gamer, then why not? I should have taken the hint from Argentina, which is all about Pygame in some areas (or so I recall -- a presence in Vilnius). Speaking of Python and games, I was privileged to join the CPP party in the nearby Softel and get my first experience with an xBox guitar woo hoo, not bad after a couple Black Labels. This is the company behind one of those massively parallel online gaming communities, a profitable business if you have loyal fans, based in Iceland. This is where Twisted comes into its own. What people don't get about FOSS is how many companies use it daily without thinking about it, deep in their internals, driving whatever container shipping service, rental car agency, garbage collection business. Large conservative banks running on PostgreSQL aren't breaking any laws in so doing. Billions get made using FOSS every day. This is what finally hit home about Pycon. These are happy camper users of a great language, coming together to celebrate and share tools, but most of the use cases come from private practice, academia a new minority. However, it's a growing minority, and quite welcome. With help from Vern Ceder, we're looking at PyOhio as more of a model for 2010, with floorspace set aside for posters, perhaps with judging. I've got another example of such a conference in my Photostream, where I was invited back to update the ESRI community regarding matters Pythonic. Given this was a local crowd, city and county GIS experts, I used the occasion to advance the "place based education" agenda, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway, back to 'Hello World!', I'm admiring towards its style, its intelligent dialog based format, and its interesting drawings by Martin Murtonen. There's a lot of 'Head First' type thinking going on, but that's a megatrend in technical writing more generally, pioneered in part by the 'for Dummies' series, my friend Allen Taylor the author of 'SQL for Dummies' (I always thought 'CORBA for Dummies' sounded especially oxymoronic). I also appreciate having my name in the acknowledgments, something to brag about ('Bucky Works' by J. Baldwin is another tome I'm proud to have my name in). Kirby

1 1

What Linux distro?
by Fahreddın Basegmez 21 Apr '09

21 Apr '09

Hi, I have been developing a programmable scientific visualization tool/rapid game maker with wxPython for a while. I recently released the first public beta version that works on windows only. Now, I am going to start working on a Linux version very soon. I have not decided which distro to use yet but leaning towards Ubuntu. Could you give me some feedback? What is the most popular distro in educational institutes/settings? You can download the application from www.mekanimo.net. Also I have a 5 min video at http://mekanimomedia.s3.amazonaws.com/tangram/Tangram.html If you try the application, I would appreciate your feedback about that too. Thanks in advance, Fahri Basegmez

5 8

What version of Python to teach ....
by Laura Creighton 21 Apr '09

21 Apr '09

One note: It is very important to teach your students how to read code. I think that this is even more important that teaching them how to write code -- not only will they spend more time reading code than writing code in their lives, but it is through reading other people's code that you can learn any technique for writing code. (Well, that, and a whole lot of practice, but a certain amount of reading of code every day can cut down on the number of things that you have to learn by doing.) There isn't a lot of Python 3.0 code out there to read. So even if you are only teaching your students how to write 3.0, you will still have to teach them how to read 2.x. Just thought I would mention it before I forgot, Laura

4 4

How do kids these days get started in programming?
by Daniel Ajoy 20 Apr '09

20 Apr '09

How do kids these days get started in programming? http://www.ensode.net/roller/dheffelfinger/entry/how_do_kids_these_days Many experiences there mention that now kids start programming by playing with their calculators. Others speculate that kids start programming by inspecting HTML and javascript. Daniel

3 6

Re: [Edu-sig] What version of Python to teach ....
by Laura Creighton 19 Apr '09

19 Apr '09

In a message of Sun, 19 Apr 2009 14:25:29 PDT, Edward Cherlin writes: >No, I'm suggesting that an introductory course on Python 3.0 can make >use of converted and lightly massaged code, and ignore Python 2.x >until students have wrapped their minds around one version. Computer >Science students are not necessarily interested in commercial >programming, and may never need to learn 2.x. People learning Python >in order to write their own programs, ditto. The original question was >how to get enough educational examples in Python 3.0. But the ability to read code is not something that should be left to commercial programmers. Unless you are at an age where reading itself is problematical, there is no better way to become a better programmer than to spend an hour a day reading other people's well-written code. This 'how to read code' is something that belongs in everybody's Introductory course, and it is something that we are going to have to pay special attention to these days, if you are teaching Python 3.0, rather than assuming that students will learn how to read code just by following your teaching exercises. The code that you are likely to assign to students as reading assignments, and the code (aside from the Python interpreter and the standard library itself) that they are likely to want to read will be 2.x code. >For the larger problem of converting existing 2.x libraries and >applications in order to have more 3.0 to read, that will solve itself >in the normal course of events. See Guido's advice. >http://docs.python.org/3.0/whatsnew/3.0.html This assumes that the creators of 2.x programs intend to move their old code to 3.0. For a large fraction of the existing programs out there, this simply will never happen. It has been a long time since these programs were in active development, they are stable, and nobody wants to go around poking a hornet's nest with a stick if they don't have to. The importance of lessons in 'how to read 2.x programs' may diminish as time goes on, but I predict that it will never go away altogether. Laura

2 1

Re: [Edu-sig] What version of Python to teach ....
by Edward Cherlin 19 Apr '09

19 Apr '09

On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Laura Creighton <lac(a)openend.se> wrote: > > One note: > It is very important to teach your students how to read code. I think that > this is even more important that teaching them how to write code -- not > only will they spend more time reading code than writing code in their > lives, but it is through reading other people's code that you can learn > any technique for writing code. (Well, that, and a whole lot of practice, > but a certain amount of reading of code every day can cut down on the > number of things that you have to learn by doing.) > > There isn't a lot of Python 3.0 code out there to read. So even if you > are only teaching your students how to write 3.0, you will still have to > teach them how to read 2.x. I wonder how much of that is needed. You do need to teach them how to convert 2.x code to 3.0, but in many cases this is not too burdensome. http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/nde/papers/teachpy3.html The Python 3.0 distribution comes with a refactoring tool called 2to3, intended to assist with the translation of Python 2.x code to Python 3.0. The tool operates on stdin, individual files or an entire directory tree. It writes a unified diff patch for each .py file to stdout, and a summary of which files needed changes to stderr. With the -w command line option, it will create a back-up of each file and then apply the patch to the file. An an experiment, we tried running the 2to3 tool provided in the third alpha release of Python 3.0 on the collection of example programs used in our first-year programming lectures [10], using the -w option to apply the patches. The tool took 47.2 seconds to process 147 .py files [11] and changed 77 of them (52% of the total). In 80% of cases, the changes involved console I/O only and no manual intervention was required to produce satisfactory code. In 5% of cases, 2to3 produced code that ran correctly but was redundant in some way. (A conversion example follows). It would be interesting to go through this collection of examples used in teaching 2.x, and find out how much of the new code just works, and what are the remaining issues. This might be the basis for a book. > Just thought I would mention it before I forgot, > Laura > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig(a)python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig -- Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name And Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination. http://earthtreasury.org/worknet (Edward Mokurai Cherlin)

6 5

Re: [Edu-sig] What version of Python to teach ....
by Laura Creighton 19 Apr '09

19 Apr '09

In a message of Sun, 19 Apr 2009 12:49:17 PDT, Edward Cherlin writes: >On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Laura Creighton <lac(a)openend.se> wrote: >> >> One note: >> It is very important to teach your students how to read code. Â I think t >hat >> this is even more important that teaching them how to write code -- not >> only will they spend more time reading code than writing code in their >> lives, but it is through reading other people's code that you can learn >> any technique for writing code. Â (Well, that, and a whole lot of practic >e, >> but a certain amount of reading of code every day can cut down on the >> number of things that you have to learn by doing.) >> >> There isn't a lot of Python 3.0 code out there to read. Â So even if you >> are only teaching your students how to write 3.0, you will still have t >o >> teach them how to read 2.x. > >I wonder how much of that is needed. You do need to teach them how to >convert 2.x code to 3.0, >but in many cases this is not too burdensome. > >http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/nde/papers/teachpy3.html > >The Python 3.0 distribution comes with a refactoring tool called 2to3, >intended to assist with the translation of Python 2.x code to Python >3.0. The tool operates on stdin, individual files or an entire >directory tree. It writes a unified diff patch for each .py file to >stdout, and a summary of which files needed changes to stderr. With >the -w command line option, it will create a back-up of each file and >then apply the patch to the file. > >An an experiment, we tried running the 2to3 tool provided in the third >alpha release of Python 3.0 on the collection of example programs used >in our first-year programming lectures [10], using the -w option to >apply the patches. The tool took 47.2 seconds to process 147 .py files >[11] and changed 77 of them (52% of the total). > >In 80% of cases, the changes involved console I/O only and no manual >intervention was required to produce satisfactory code. In 5% of >cases, 2to3 produced code that ran correctly but was redundant in some >way. > >(A conversion example follows). > >It would be interesting to go through this collection of examples >used in teaching 2.x, and find out how much of the new code just >works, and what are the remaining issues. This might be the basis for >a book. > >> Just thought I would mention it before I forgot, >> Laura You are suggesting that students will need to learn how to use a refactoring tool before they can sit down and read a piece of pre 3.0 code for pleasure and edification? Laura

2 1