Mailman 3 May 2010 - Edu-sig

xturtle online via processing.js !?
by Jurgis Pralgauskis Sept. 27, 2012

Sept. 27, 2012

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 … [View More]

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Math 2.0 online live series: June overview
by Maria Droujkova May 30, 2010

May 30, 2010

Join these free, open, weekly live online events at Math 2.0 interest group and meet other interested educators, parents, developers, and community leaders for an hour of an intense discussion. June 5th, 2010, 2pm ET. Host: Julie Harland, Mathematics Professor at MiraCosta College and creator of hundreds of math videos at YourMathGal.com You can ask Julie questions about her projects, as well as using screencasts in your work and online education in general. June 9th, 2010, 9:30pm ET. Host: … [View More]

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Factory functions: synthesizing top-level names
by kirby urner May 27, 2010

May 27, 2010

Creating Top-Level names root0, root1, root2... rootN Setting the stage: We've come across an ethnicity, in our voyages of the starship whatever, that doesn't share our fascination with squares and cubes. For example, when multiplying n * n, it never occurred to them to picture n * n squares in a checkerboard pattern. Rather, they have a more Chinese Checkers bias towards triangles and hexagons, and their picture of n * n is an equilateral triangle subdivided into n ** 2 similar sub-… [View More]

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Re: [Edu-sig] Question for Guido van Robot, RUR-PLE and other Karel the robot clone users (Andre Roberge)
by Andy Judkis May 22, 2010

May 22, 2010

I just finished using RUR-PLE to introduce programming for probably the 10th time, and I still feel that it's just about ideal as a starting point for Python. If you haven't looked at it, I highly recommend giving it a try. Every time I teach it, I mean to send Andre an email saying "you know, we can just drop this turn_off() thing", but I never remember. I can't think of any programming concept that turn_off() teaches, and there are always a few kids who confuse it with return. … [View More]

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Question for Guido van Robot, RUR-PLE and other Karel the robot clone users
by Andre Roberge May 21, 2010

May 21, 2010

Karel the robot introduced by Pattis in 1981 included a turnoff instruction. Since then, every clone seems to include that instruction as well. I have never seen a pedagogical reason given for including the turnoff instruction. I have yet to see a good example where the use of that instruction is required... Karel the robot is used as a mini-language to introduce programming concepts. An alternative visual environment is provided by turtle graphics. When I look at turtle graphics, there … [View More]

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Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python book now on Amazon
by Albert Sweigart May 19, 2010

May 19, 2010

Hello everyone. I've written a book called "Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python" which is freely available under a Creative Commons license at http://inventwithpython.com The print version is now also available on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/Invent-Your-Computer-Games-Python/dp/0982106017/ Unlike many other programming books which cover programming concepts and principles without concrete examples, each chapter in "Invent with Python" features the complete source code for a … [View More]

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MasterCard Marketplace to revolutionize online shopping experience
by mikle3d kys May 18, 2010

May 18, 2010

MasterCard Worldwide announced a three-year exclusive alliance in the payments space with Next Jump Inc a next-generation e-commerce company, to revolutionize the online shopping experience. The strategic agreement will allow the companies to work together to harness their combined assets in the payments technology, e-commerce and digital marketing space to drive innovation for the industry and improve the consumer experience. It will also give MasterCard access to Next Jump’s extensive … [View More]

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Calling functions...
by kirby urner May 16, 2010

May 16, 2010

Hey Kirby!! This is the best explanation I've seen of Python's argument passing subtleties. If you don't mind I would like to post it on our PyKata website in a section "Tips from the Masters", with you as author, of course. We could also put a link to a page on your website, if you prefer. -- Dave Would be great on PyKata! Kirby

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Calling functions...
by kirby urner May 16, 2010

May 16, 2010

Something I maybe hadn't been clear on before cramming for a workshop: Even functions with purely positional parameters may be passed a dict, in which case the positional parameters will be treated like named ones, i.e. the dict will map to them. I'll use the new formating protocol: >>> from __future__ import print_function >>> def f(a, b, c): print("a={0}, b={1}, c={2}".format(a,b,c)) >>> f(1,2,3) a=1, b=2, c=3 Here's what I'm illustrating: >>> … [View More]thedict = dict(c=5,a=10,b='cat') >>> f(**thedict) a=10, b=cat, c=5 Now what if we try to sneak in an argument that doesn't map: >>> thedict = dict(c=5,a=10,b='cat', d='dog') >>> f(**thedict) Traceback (most recent call last): File "<pyshell#11>", line 1, in <module> f(**thedict) TypeError: f() got an unexpected keyword argument 'd' The d is caught, an exception is raised. So here we might add the all purpose "pooper scooper" (yeah, scatological -- sometimes effective pedagogy): >>> def f(a, b, c, **kwargs): print("a={0}, b={1}, c={2}".format(a,b,c)) The d now gets through, though nothing echoes: >>> f(**thedict) a=10, b=cat, c=5 Lets make sure we see what's in "overflow": >>> def f(a, b, c, **kwargs): print("a={0}, b={1}, c={2}".format(a,b,c)) print(kwargs) >>> f(**thedict) a=10, b=cat, c=5 {'d': 'dog'} Is an all purpose pooper scooper allowed to have defaults? No, default arguments are what turn parameters into named parameters. *args and **kwargs (often so named by convention) are not named parameters so much as "collectors" of "overflow" arguments (made-up terminology). >>> def f(a, b, c, d='dog', *e): print("a={0}, b={1}, c={2} d={3} e={4}".format(a,b,c,d,e)) >>> f(**thedict) a=10, b=cat, c=5 d=dog e=() >>> Speaking of made-up terminology, when I pass **thedict as an argument, I tend to think of the ** as "explode". If you don't double-star it, it goes through as just the one argument and an exception gets raised: >>> f(thedict) Traceback (most recent call last): File "<pyshell#31>", line 1, in <module> f(thedict) TypeError: f() takes at least 3 arguments (1 given) The same "explode" operator works for tuples in that it "unpacks" the one argument into len(tuple) arguments. The typical use is to make (x,y,z)-tuples map to some function that expects x, y and z as separate arguments. The error messages remind us when we fail to "explode" one argument into many: >>> def f(x, y, z): return x**2 + y**2 + z**2 >>> f(1,2,3) 14 >>> coords = (1,2,3) >>> f(coords) Traceback (most recent call last): File "<pyshell#38>", line 1, in <module> f(coords) TypeError: f() takes exactly 3 arguments (1 given) >>> f(*coords) 14 >>> f(dict(y=2,x=1,z=3)) Traceback (most recent call last): File "<pyshell#40>", line 1, in <module> f(dict(y=2,x=1,z=3)) TypeError: f() takes exactly 3 arguments (1 given) >>> f(**dict(y=2,x=1,z=3)) 14 Kirby [View Less]

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The perfect IT environment in a school
by Jan Ulrich Hasecke May 8, 2010

May 8, 2010

Hi, since three years I am guiding a Python voluntary workgroup in a school and we are suffering from a badly organized IT environment (a rigidly restricted Windows setting). Most of all we miss a decent VCS as Mercurial or Bazaar. In the official IT classes they never used a VCS so it was never installed. While thinking about this I discovered that some other things are missing. For eg. we cannot install a web framework due to the strange restrictions. They do not have Zotero installed. For … [View More]

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