From a cultural perspective GPL may be one of the most important pieces of
Hi. I've been following the sordid tale of SCOvs.IBM. I found two excellent sites... GROKLAW, a weblog cover legal matters "Putting some meat on legal news' bones." http://radio.weblogs.com/0120124/ and a superb wiki tracking the SCO scandal http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SCOvsIBM I am beginning to think the SCO debacle it will emerge as the best thing which ever happened to OpenSource and GNU, because by the end of the affair SCO will lose infamously. But also because corporate business, mainstream media, and the courts will all finally understand the legal ethical and programming issues. It's a little like how America learns Geography every time it goes to war [ouch did I say that?]. Anyway, I am very curious to learn if those of you teaching/using Python in schools also take time to discuss GNU and related topics with your students? Stories comments reaction most welcome.. programming ever done. Certainly it is Stallman's great hack, one for the history and law books. GPL: The GNU General Public License www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL "In the GNU project, our aim is to give all users the freedom to redistribute and change GNU software. If middlemen could strip off the freedom, we might have many users, but those users would not have freedom. So instead of putting GNU software in the public domain, we ``copyleft'' it. Copyleft says that anyone who redistributes the software, with or without changes, must pass along the freedom to further copy and change it. Copyleft guarantees that every user has freedom." GPL is not all, but it is the original mountain from which the other collaborative licenses flow and define themselves. thanks Jason ______________________________________________ Jason Cunliffe [NOMADICS: Director art+design] Tel/fax: +1 718 422-1078 jasonic@nomadics.org N 43:00.000' W 074:31.875' ALT:1144 ft 84 Henry Street #3C Brooklyn NY 11201 USA http://tranzilla.net/.v
I've started to dive into Pygame more intensively and wondered if any other subscribers to edu-sig are exploring its potential. My focus right now is on drawing 2-dimensional graphs. I'm finding this entertaining, and suppose students might as well. I'd be happy to share source code if anyone's interested in learning it with me -- with the understanding that this is beginner level stuff vis-a-vis that package. Kirby Footnote: I'm getting in the habit of using Patrick O'Brien's PyAlaMode for my editing/shell work these days. It's quite nice. Newly inspired at OSCON, I'll be getting into wxPython more as well, maybe try to wrap my mind around PythonCard a little more at the source code level (Kevin has some really cool math-related demos). I'll be waiting on OpenGL stuff (also integrated into PyGame and wxWindows) until it's ready for 2.3, which is just about the only Python I'm using for development these days.
Kirby, I've been quiet on the list lately, but I always enjoy your code examples and would be happy to see you share them. Pygame is very interesting and something I've been meaning to find time to explore. I've been discussing a potential game with my daughter (age 6) involving fairies. So far I have a pair of fairy (or butterfly) wings flapping in VPython, but haven't gotten further. Perhaps I'd make faster progress with a sprite-based Pygame version. I want to make it a toolkit for her to begin exploring simple programming, like turtle graphics is to Logo. If there's any interest I can post it. Not sure how crufty it is, it's been awhile since I've worked on it. --Dethe
At 11:26 AM 7/30/2003 -0700, Dethe Elza wrote:
Kirby,
I've been quiet on the list lately, but I always enjoy your code examples and would be happy to see you share them. Pygame is very interesting and something I've been meaning to find time to explore.
Thanks for your interest Dethe. It's a bit too much to post to this list (390 lines and counting), so I've put my recent playing around on the web at: http://www.inetarena.com/~pdx4d/ocn/python/pygame/ I've only tested it in Windows, so if you're doing the Linux thing, I'd be interested to know if everything works. I was pretty liberal with comments, to help with learning (who knows when I might want to understand this again).
I've been discussing a potential game with my daughter (age 6) involving fairies. So far I have a pair of fairy (or butterfly) wings flapping in VPython, but haven't gotten further. Perhaps I'd make faster progress with a sprite-based Pygame version. I want to make it a toolkit for her to begin exploring simple programming, like turtle graphics is to Logo.
I had Tara (9) looking over my shoulder as I coded some of this today. It was her idea to do 7 concentric circles using VIBGYOR (the colors of the rainbow). I had to google for RGB values. I didn't really explain what I was doing as I entered them in hex.
If there's any interest I can post it. Not sure how crufty it is, it's been awhile since I've worked on it.
--Dethe
I'd be interested. I have to see if VPython is working for me though. I'm using 2.3 and all my file associations point to 2.3. The 2.2 stuff doesn't work very well. That's a problem with Windows, makes it hard for several Pythons to co-exist. But there's always using a different box! Kirby
Thanks for your interest Dethe. It's a bit too much to post to this list (390 lines and counting), so I've put my recent playing around on the web at: http://www.inetarena.com/~pdx4d/ocn/python/pygame/
Posting a link is fine, and often prefereable to inline code. Python especially doesn't always survive transit via email due to whitespace and linebreak mangling.
I've only tested it in Windows, so if you're doing the Linux thing, I'd be interested to know if everything works. I was pretty liberal with comments, to help with learning (who knows when I might want to understand this again).
I'm doing the OS X thing, but I have the linux thing lying around too. I'll kick the tires in both.
I had Tara (9) looking over my shoulder as I coded some of this today. It was her idea to do 7 concentric circles using VIBGYOR (the colors of the rainbow). I had to google for RGB values. I didn't really explain what I was doing as I entered them in hex.
That's very cool. I wrote a quick lookup for some basic hex values years ago. Dunno if it would be helpful, but it lives here: http://delza.alliances.org/gifs/safecolors.html It dates from the days when table support in browsers was new and windows defaulted to 16 color mode.
I'd be interested. I have to see if VPython is working for me though. I'm using 2.3 and all my file associations point to 2.3. The 2.2 stuff doesn't work very well. That's a problem with Windows, makes it hard for several Pythons to co-exist. But there's always using a different box!
I don't see a version of VPython for 2.3 yet. It may take some time for VPython to catch up. I installed ActiveState's Python 2.2 on my 'doze box at work and VPython ran OK with it. I hope someday VPython actually runs on OS X (right now they've ported enough that it runs under X on OS X which isn't the same thing at all). PythonWare distributes a Python for Windows which doesn't muck about with the registry, so it's easy to have multiple installs. Unfortunately, the last version they packaged appears to be 2.1. I'll put some of my half-baked projects on a server somewhere tomorrow and post a link. --Dethe
Hi, We have been using Python and VPython in our intro programming classes for one year now, with great success. We also use Python in some of our more advanced classes, where I plan to discuss the differences between 2.2 and 2.3 (such as the C3 Method Resolution Order). Anyway, what problems can be anticipated with having multiple installs on the same box? I hadn't encountered any in the short time I've been playing with 2.3, but I saw in a recent post (sorry, I forget who mentioned it!) that there are some problems if you do the default installs. thanks, duane -- R. Duane Skaggs, Technology Coordinator Department of Mathematics and Computer Science 241A Lappin Hall Morehead State University Morehead, KY USA 40351 _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig This message scanned by RAV anti-virus.
Anyway, what problems can be anticipated with having multiple installs on the same box?
On Unix, the only thing is that you have to decide which interpreter you want to make the *default* -- that's the one you call "python". You can always explicitly use "python2.2" or "python2.3". If you build and install from source, the last "make install" you do becomes the default, unless you use "make altinstall". It's easy to fix afterward by using a hard link. On Windows, similarly the only problem I know of is that if you double-click a Python script or otherwise run it, the one you installed last will install itself in the registry as the default Python. But through the Start menu or by using explicit paths (e.g. C:\python\python23.exe) you can always force the right interpreter. (There may be problems I'm not aware of with using Win32all's COM support; it's probably similar though, the last one installed wins.) --Guido van Rossum
Hi all, I've finally started to put up some of my python snippets. Two things so far: the start of a Logo-like turtle graphics game in Tkinter, and flapping butterfly-like wings in VPython. More to come soon. Both tangentially related to education %-) http://livingcode.ca/rotfl Feedback welcome and appreciated. --Dethe
On Wednesday, July 30, 2003, at 04:19 PM, Kirby Urner wrote:
I've only tested it in Windows, so if you're doing the Linux thing, I'd be interested to know if everything works. I was pretty liberal with comments, to help with learning (who knows when I might want to understand this again).
Works fine under OS X, haven't had a chance to install pygame on Linux yet. The only problem I had was minor: had to download 5 files and put them in the right place relative to each other. A zip or other such single-file download would be nice. Not a big deal when it's only five files. Otherwise, it worked like a charm. Interesting approach to visualizing functions. --Dethe
participants (5)
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Dethe Elza -
Guido van Rossum -
Jason Cunliffe -
Kirby Urner -
R Duane Skaggs