Mailman 3 July 2010 - 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

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Eclipse as Python3 IDE
by kirby urner 11 Mar '11

11 Mar '11

Just wanted to share experiences using PyDev plugin within Eclipse, with Python 3... I've not been unable to get pickle to work properly, with the error confirmed by others. Sometimes (in at least one case) an error marker will indicate a module name cannot be resolved, and yet it imports and works anyway. Getting proper syntax-coloring around triple-quotes seems problematic, especially when the first line is empty e.g. """ comments go here """ However, I'm able to get the coloring situation to resolve by moving text around later... On the whole, Eclipse is pretty capable in supplying an interactive shell, lots of different windows. There's even a terminal window option if you want to do ssh into a server right from within Eclipse. As the above difficulties get ironed out, I think Eclipse will continue to serve as a development platform for Pythonistas. It's not the only option, given Visual Studio, Wing IDE etc., but it's one of the better free ones (eMacs, vim -- these do everything too, in the hands of experienced users, Notepad not so much). [ I remember how Jason Cunliffe used to post a lot about Leo to this archive. There's a school of thought that's more into "literary programming" as I'd call it, where comments might be relatively copious, with more hypertext relationships. You get these fancy markups... ] Some of you may be familiar with the O'Reilly School of Technology (OST) and its use of Eclipse as a front end to accredited courses in the many languages, databases and so on. Rather than use the free-standing Eclipse, which is an option, you get a customized student version called Ellipse that runs of their servers in a remote desktop session. This seems a creative approach and gets a next generation of developer prepared with one of the state of the art environments, using some of the best industry standard tools (e.g. Python and MySQL). Kirby PS: in other news, I've continued to focus on the plight of the lone FoxPro coder (which was me for many years, but not just me) and possible migration paths for legacy applications. FoxPro is a dialect of xBase nutured by Microsoft over the decades. It competes with their other products and too many people use it for free (not the original business model, unlike Java's) so the plan is to discontinue support for it by 2015 I think it is. This decision is having lots of boat rocking-ripple effects, It's not automatic that the .NET platform is where to go next, certainly not with VB necessarily. New developers don't want to waste time learning a proprietary dead language that might be hard to come by down the road, so there's increasing pressure to migrate those legacy FoxPro apps that still do valuable work. I haven't been tracking closely and don't know if MSFT is taking IronPython that seriously, in terms of marketing and outreach. Server side apps still seem to be gaining over thick clients in many institutional settings, but again, I'm not posing as having a lot of overview here. Gotta read all those IT mags I guess, but who has the time? Pointers to true story use cases welcome.

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open source admin in academia? (editorial)
by kirby urner 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

I'm becoming more aware of the fact that one reason universities need to charge those tuitions is to pay licensing fees to private vendors who provide them with such basic services as the ability to store and schedule classes, record student enrollment and grades, record instructors etc. The catalog needs to be published on-line. There might be a lot of extended education options, e.g. non-credit courses open to anyone willing to sign up. Some of these proprietary programs are pretty old, lack features departments need, and so various intermediating applications grow up around the edges to fill in the gaps. Maybe the big dino system doesn't record student evaluations for example, or keep track of which courses are in the pipeline, but still haven't found a place in the sun. One would think that universities in particular, which pride themselves on having advanced knowledge of state of the art skills, would band together in various consortia to pool resources and "eat their own dog food" as it were. A school that teaches medicine actually practices medicine (the "teaching hospital"). Shouldn't schools that teach computer science and business administration actually walk the talk in some way? Maybe many of them do, I don't actually know. To outsource something so core to one's business, to pay licensing fees while not having the power to make design modifications, just seems more than a tad on the ironic side. It's like a bank outsourcing everything it does around money. I realize not every college or university wants to reinvent the wheel around something so basic, but I do wonder to what extent there's some open source sharing going on, around these core utilities. Are universities so competitive they won't share? So does that mean they all pay the same licensing fees to use the same private vendor offerings? I remember Zope / Plone and SchoolTool. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SchoolTool Is there something even more comprehensive that's out there, suitable for college and university use? Does it come in modularized components? Is it an over-the-web database? Or do few if any universities really eat their own dog food? Like I say, I'm new to this business, just trying to get oriented. Kirby

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busy with Martian Math...
by kirby urner 31 Jul '10

31 Jul '10

I'm packaging up some Python for a next course that I'm teaching (a relatively busy summer for me). I've also got the J language in the docket. The computer lab is all state of the art Macs, so we'll see how we fair with IDLE. I've appended some source code I just wrote in the last hour, while watching a geometry show on public TV (math-dimensions.org -- on Portland, Oregon's cable network these days). The source won't run without an additional dependency though, which I call stickworks.py -- features in some of the Showmedo episodes and other places. This module provides simple Vector and Edge classes for working with VPython (another dependency). The course materials I'm developing may be previewed at this URL: http://www.4dsolutions.net/satacad/martianmath/mm0.html (and following) (cover page index.html not yet crafted) (comments welcome). I will conclude with a repost of something I just posted to my little engineering list, headquartered at the so-called Pauling House (Linus Pauling's boyhood home), FYI. Keith was a presenter at OSCON this year, regarding his Server Sky idea (orbiting server farm) while Allen Taylor is the esteemed author of 'SQL for Dummies'. ==== Re: [wwwanderers] Mars aressync orbits OK, thanks to both Keith and yourself for all the discussion. I'd not seen that "fourth power" argument before, but then this literature is fairly alien to me. Back on planet Earth (and Keith's gardening concerns), I was just seeing on public TV about how Salem has yet to permit urban farmers to keep chickens. I'd just assumed that chicken coops were legal throughout the Willamette Valley, silly me. I caught this show while waiting for another public TV show about hyper-dimensional geometry. We were informed that higher dimensional spaces "really exist" base on the analogy that if two dimensional beings can think about three dimensions, then so should we, be able to think about four. As a database guy, my bias is to think of n-tuple addressing as just a fancy way to store/retrieve records, like URLs for storing/retrieving web pages (there's a reason it's called hypertext). Sure, you can come up with fancy analogies to polyhedra, but I'm not sure this "really exists" argument is important to the mathematics. Seems more like mysticism (or even organized religion). In any case, the Martian Math I'm busy concocting has a different meaning of "4D". I thought it was poetic that I was working on my uploads at the same time I was catching this Earthian Math show on public television. Kirby On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 2:07 PM, Allen Taylor <allen.taylor(a)ieee.org> wrote: Kirby, The magnetic launcher you are thinking of works because of hyper-fast acceleration. This causes two problems: 1. Any organic matter, such as us would be turned into jelly. 2. High velocity at ground level would cause tremendous heating due to atmospheric friction, even with Mars thin atmosphere. The magnetic launcher makes sense on the Moon, which has a negligible atmosphere, but only for cargo that can stand thousands of g's. The pendulum from Phobos as well as the Lofstrom Loop are viable for Earth to orbit or Mars to orbit because velocity is low at ground level where the atmosphere is densest and because g-forces are relatively moderate. Allen ==== """ by K. Urner for Saturday Academy, Martian Math Summer camp 2010 @ Reed College http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/satacad/martianmath/ """ from stickworks import Qray, Edge, getedges from visual import * def setscene ( ): """set the stage for our little drama""" scene2 = display(title='Drawing a Duo-Tet Cube', fullscreen= True, autoscale = False, background=color.white, scale = vector(0.1, 0.1, 0.1)) return scene2 def ccp( ): """ draw 12 spheres around 1 """ scene = setscene( ) scene.select( ) # 26 points in space (as sums of Qrays) a, b, c, d = Qray((1,0,0,0)), Qray((0,1,0,0)), Qray((0,0,1,0)), Qray((0,0,0,1)) e, f, g, h = -a, -b, -c, d i,j,k,l,m,n = a+b, a+c, a+d, b+c, b+d, c+d o,p,q,r,s,t = i+j, i+k, i+l, i+m, n+j, n+k u,v,w,x,y,z = n+l, n+m, j+l, l+m, m+k, k+j # 12 around... for locus in [o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z]: ball = sphere(pos = locus.xyz, color = color.orange, radius = 0.5) # 1 at the center (nuclear ball) center = sphere(pos = (0,0,0), color = color.red, radius = 0.5) print "OK, done..." return if __name__ == "__main__": ccp( )

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more ruminations... (Python and physics etc.)
by kirby urner 21 Jul '10

21 Jul '10

More ruminations regarding Python and math teaching, at the Math Forum, with stuff about Smalltalk, OLPC etc. Excerpt: """ I'm thinking Arthur Siegel (on edu-sig / Python Nation) was on the right track in always insisting that VPython become a part of the standard distro. Having something relatively easy, user friendly that's OpenGL, is gonna do wonders for your geometry classes, and after geometry + geography, what else is there? Me 'n Sir William thought the same way. [William Colby -- KU] """ http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=7133134&tstart=0 Also, after two days with the physics teachers, I'm again impressed with how far ahead the community seems to be, vis-a-vis most of the math teaching community, in terms of embracing social networking, other tools. http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2010/07/physics-conference.html I was sorry to miss Ruth Chabay's VPython presentations. She was among the presenters. http://www4.ncsu.edu/~rwchabay/ I did see stuff happening with Python though. Even my own work was mentioned (Studies in Human Motion, using Python + POV-Ray, with input from a spreadsheet getting from sensors attached to a dancer's body). The movies: http://physics.doane.edu/hpp/Resources/UHMCD/UHMCDMedia.htm http://physics.doane.edu/hpp/Resources/UHMCD/UHMCDPeople.htm (includes me in the credits) Then there's this software called Logger Pro by Vernier that a lot of physics teachers are using. Venier is to physics teaching sort of what TI is to math teaching? Kirby

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Re: [Edu-sig] women in computer (was: source code from SA:10648)
by kirby urner 21 Jul '10

21 Jul '10

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 3:00 PM, Calcpage <calcpage(a)aol.com> wrote: > There's a lot of content on YouTube regarding Ada Lovelace Day as well. > There was some discussion on the AP-CompSci listserv about making a Grace > Murray Hopper Day as well. The problem IIRC was that Hopper's and > Lovelace's (or is it Byron) birthdays were very close if not, in fact, the > same day (not year of course). > > Regards, > A. Jorge Garcia > Applied Math & CS > Baldwin SHS & Nassau CC > http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com > http://www.youtube.com/calcpage2009 > Sent from my iPod We have other ways to honor people besides having days in their honor. Given Ada and Hopper, I'm happy to circle "computer science" as "belonging to women", which of course just gets me in hot water with some of the guy-centric storytellers. I posted some essays to math-thinking-l about this, some here, some on Python's diversity list (private archive -- you have to join it to read it, unlike edu-sig). Lots about "FOSS witches", which came up around here awhile back as well: http://www.mail-archive.com/edu-sig@python.org/msg05726.html The New Yorker magazine once published a cover story slamming Ada, trying to withdraw her title as "first computer programmer". I rallied to her defense: http://www.grunch.net/synergetics/adaessay.html Of course one might argue "it doesn't mean anything" to say women control computer science. Likewise men don't control anything I suppose one could say (least of all themselves). However, in terms of seeking balance, I'm happy to develop this narrative line. Our next truly creative bursts (if we have any) will all have to do with using computing technology to take better care of "women and children" (the signature civilians) and less to do with world domination through brute force (a male specialty). OLPC etc. Caring about community. Mesh networking etc. Yes, sounds like a "party line" ("pirate party"?).[0] I am heartened to see open source moving into health care, even if that's just MUMPS leading the charge. At the hospital I worked at, I tried to envision a more contemporary SQL based approach [1], but then I think the future of medical records will be more like Facebook (except more private and with medical devices and imaging systems for "friends" -- along with physicians and their case notes).[2] Kirby [0] re Pirate Party http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2007/08/which-hollywood-star-for-president.… [1] Django / Python instead of MUMPS? http://www.4dsolutions.net/presentations/charting_a_future_sysadmin.pdf [2] Medical records in Cassandra or one of those "schema-less" databases http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2009/06/medical-privacy.html

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Re: [Edu-sig] source code from SA:10648
by John Posner 21 Jul '10

21 Jul '10

Kirby wrote: > for question, answer in quiz: > print(question) > user_answer = raw_input("Your answer? ") > Kirby, will the class be using Py2 or Py3? It looks like you're mix-and-matching, using the *print* function (Py3) along with the *raw_input* function (Py2). Do you really want to inflict "from __future__ import print_function" on your students? Best, John

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Directed Graphs data to analyze the World Cup
by Daniel Ajoy 19 Jul '10

19 Jul '10

http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~ht/footballgraphs/index.html Daniel

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source code from SA:10648
by kirby urner 15 Jul '10

15 Jul '10

Here is some of the code we will be using in class today. After that, a source code file from yesterday's class: Some Games """ from random import randint, choice # a list of (question, answer) tuples quiz1 = [("What is the capital of Oregon?", "Salem"), ("Is Portland north of Salem?", "Yes"), ("Does I-5 go to Seattle?", "Yes"), ("Does I-5 go to Pendleton?", "No")] quiz2 = [("What is the capital of Washington State","Olympia"), ("Are kangaroos native to China?","No"), ("Who is the president of the USA?", "Obama"), ("What computer language is named for Monty Python?", "Python")] quizzes = [quiz1, quiz2] # list of possible quizzes def askq(quiz = quiz1): score = 0 possible = len(quiz) while len(quiz) > 0: pickone = randint(0, len(quiz)-1) print(quiz[pickone][0]) answer = raw_input("Your answer? ") if answer.upper() == quiz[pickone][1].upper(): # yes and Yes would both count (but not Y) print("Correct!") score = score + 1 else: print("Correct answer was %s" % quiz[pickone][1]) quiz.pop(pickone) print("Your score was %s out of a possible %s" % (score, possible)) def guessing(a=0,b=10): thenumber = randint(a,b) while True: print("I'm thinking of a number between %s and %s, what is it?" % (a,b)) answer = raw_input("Guess (q to quit): ") if answer == "q": print("Thanks for trying, the number was %s" % thenumber) break # escape loop if not answer.isdigit(): # trap non-integer answers print("That's not a number!") continue # loop again answer = int(answer) # convert to integer if answer == thenumber: print("That's it!") break # escape loop elif answer < thenumber: print("Try larger!") elif answer > thenumber: print("Try smaller!") def mainmenu(): while True: print(""" What game would you like to play? 1 Take a Quiz 2 Guess a Number 0 Exit""") sel = raw_input("Your selection? ") if sel == "0": print("OK, Good Bye") break elif sel == "1": # randomly choose a quize askq(choice(quizzes)) elif sel == "2": guessing() else: print("Huh? Please try again") if __name__ == "__main__": # askq(quiz1) # guessing() mainmenu() ======= from random import randint, random, choice allcolors = [color.orange, color.red, color.magenta, color.yellow, color.blue, color.white, color.green] def randcolor(): return (random.random(), random.random(), random.random()) def junk(n=100): for i in range(n): draw = choice(["ball", "box"]) if draw == "ball": manyspheres(1) else: manyboxes(1) def manyboxes(n=100): """ make random boxes.... mybox = box(pos=(x0,y0,z0), length=L, height=H, width=W) """ for i in range(n): thebox = box( pos=(randint(-100,100), randint(-100,100), randint(-100,100)), size = (randint(1, 10),randint(1,10),randint(1,10)) , color = randcolor()) def manyspheres(n=100): for i in range(n): theball = sphere( pos=(randint(-100,100),randint(-100,100),randint(-100,100)), radius = randint(1, 10), color = randcolor()) def xyz(n=10): posx = cylinder(radius = 0.1, pos=(0,0,0), axis = (n,0,0), color = color.white) negx = cylinder(radius = 0.2, pos=(0,0,0), axis = (-n,0,0), color = color.white) posy = cylinder(radius = 0.3, pos=(0,0,0), axis = (0,n,0), color = color.white) negy = cylinder(radius = 0.4, pos=(0,0,0), axis = (0,-n,0), color = color.white) posz = cylinder(radius = 0.5, pos=(0,0,0), axis = (0,0,n), color = color.white) negz = cylinder(radius = 0.6, pos=(0,0,0), axis = (0,0,-n), color = color.white) def circle(): print "Making a circle" theball = sphere(pos=(2,0,0), radius = 1, color = color.red) for i in range(10000): newx = 2 * math.cos(math.radians(i)) newy = 2 * math.sin(math.radians(i)) theball.pos = (newx, newy, 0) rate(30) def clock(): bighand = cylinder(radius = 0.1, pos=(0,0,0), axis = (0,10,0), color = color.green) littlehand = cylinder(radius = 0.1, pos=(0,0,0), axis = (0,5,0), color = color.white) clock = ring(pos=(0,0,0), axis = (0,0,1), radius = 10, color = color.red, thickness = 0.1) for i in range(0, -10000, -1): newx = 10 * math.cos(math.radians(90 + i )) newy = 10 * math.sin(math.radians(90 + i )) bighand.axis = (newx, newy, 0) newx = 5 * math.cos(math.radians(90 + i/12.)) newy = 5 * math.sin(math.radians(90 + i/12.)) littlehand.axis = (newx, newy, 0) rate(30) # student code sent by email from another workstation, # appended and converted into a function (vs. top-level) from visual import * import random window = display(title="Random Sphere", width = 1024, height = 768) window.select() class mysphere(): def __init__(self, my_color, my_pos, my_name, my_radius): mysphere_name = sphere(pos = my_pos, color = my_color, radius = my_radius) def test2(): t = 0 while t < 100000: my_color = random.choice(((255, 255, 255), (255, 255, 0), (255, 0, 0), (255, 0, 255), (0, 255, 255), (0, 0, 255), (255, 0, 0))) my_pos = (random.randrange(-1000, 1000), random.randrange(-1000, 1000), random.randrange(-1000,1000)) my_radius = random.randrange(5, 20) new_mysphere = mysphere(my_color, my_pos, t, my_radius) t += 1 rate(50) if __name__ == "__main__": # test2() junk() # manyboxes() # manyspheres() # xyz() # circle() # clock()

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Re: [Edu-sig] class notes (post facto)
by Mark Engelberg 15 Jul '10

15 Jul '10

On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 10:54 PM, kirby urner <kirby.urner(a)gmail.com> wrote: > FP promises to free us of state. The Great Lambda > tribe to the north of Python Nation, sees our little > iconic lambda, and thinks about rescuing us from > ourselves. "Liberate them from state" think our > would be rescuers. This bit cracked me up. I definitely see a bit of myself in that parody. I've been heavily influenced by the essays and presentations by Rich Hickey: http://clojure.org/state http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Value-Identity-State-Rich-Hickey so now I mostly perceive OO as a land in which people are woefully confused about the distinction between identity and state, because their languages don't allow them to make a distinction. Thinking along these lines, your story could be extended as follows: Rich from the Great Lambda tribe was visiting his friend Guido down in Python Nation. At the end of his vacation, he pulled out his camera to take a photo of Guido as a memento. Guido shook his head, "Cameras don't work properly here. You can't take a snapshot of me, it won't work." "Why won't it work?" asked Rich. "Because the photo will continue to change as I change. Tomorrow, if I grow a beard, your photo will show me with a beard. If I get sick or die, your photo will disintegrate." "So what do I do if I want to remember you as you are now?" "Hmmm," thought Guido, scratching his chin. "I suppose you could make a clone of me and take the clone back with you." "But the clone isn't really a snapshot of you," retorted Rich. "It's another living, changing being with its own identity, and it will continue to have its own experiences and diverge from you over time." "Well, maybe you could keep my clone in a dark closet, and isolate him from having any new experiences...." Rich returned home to the Great Lambda tribe, and told everyone about the absurd state of affairs in Python Nation. Everyone had a good laugh, followed by a sense of pity for their oppressed neighbors. But the Great Lambda tribe knows it would be fruitless to launch a full-scale liberation mission -- the population of Python Nation wouldn't know what to do if liberated from their state oppressor. For now, the Great Lambda tribe has decided that the best course of action is to make frequent flyovers in propaganda-loaded planes, dropping educational pamphlets which enlighten the populace about the freedom that exists in other parts of the globe. :)

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