-----Original Message----- From: Kirby Urner [mailto:urnerk@qwest.net] Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2004 11:47 AM To: 'Arthur'; 'J Max'; edu-sig@python.org Subject: RE: [Edu-sig] RE: "Croquet Project" and Python ?
Is he a hero again for then undertaking the Croguet effort, which seeks to be the new internet, and failing.
I dunno, maybe. A lot of these things will become clear 50 years from now, looking back.
I feel no real urgency to define who are the good guys and bad guys in this drama.
I don't tend toward an activist stance on many issues, really. Mostly because I don't reach conclusions very easily - trying to have due respect for complexity. And additionally because I think folks have the right to pursue (within reasonable bounds) their self-interest, undisturbed by a lot of moralizing. And were Kay pursuing HPs dominance in convergent media, and pulling down seven figures a year for it - swell for him and HP. But in the realm in which we are dealing - education - things are a bit different. It is a profession, not a business. And though it has not developed a formal code of conduct - as for example the legal profession, there is, as far as I am concerned, an implicit code of conduct. I feel Kay has breached that implicit code. The end. Art
I feel Kay has breached that implicit code.
The end.
Art
I haven't followed your thinking long enough or closely enough to understand how you came to this conclusion. So I can't offer any judgment re what I think of your train of reasoning. I look at Squeak (have it on my computer, play with it sometimes), and I have no problem with it. It seems to have a lot of promise, to be a rich environment within which enterprising educators could develop good curriculum. Squeak is one of those systems that needs to be projected on a big screen, with a very knowledgeable instructor, laser point in hand, able to walk us through a lot of material in a few hours. I feel the need for a very comprehensive, high bandwidth briefing, before I dive in myself. Trying to suck the info through the narrow straw of web docs and little tutorials just doesn't give me enough overview or depth within the time that I'm able to give to such study. And I'm quite aware that many feel the same about Python. Slick projected introductory presentations that go well beyond PowerPoint would be good to have. An intensive immersion experience. Christians call it "baptism," thinking of water -- but it may be "by fire" as well (e.g. via projectors with lots of lumens). Kirby
OK, it's that time of year again, when we dive into a new Python. Here's transcript of my first baby steps, edited to remove some butt bumps and head knocks. Kirby ================ Python 2.4b1 (#57, Oct 15 2004, 15:23:38) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on win32 Type "copyright", "credits" or "license()" for more information. **************************************************************** Personal firewall software may warn about the connection IDLE makes to its subprocess using this computer's internal loopback interface. This connection is not visible on any external interface and no data is sent to or received from the Internet. **************************************************************** IDLE 1.1a3
g = (i for i in range(10)) g <generator object at 0x00C43710> g.next() 0 g.next() 1 g.next() 2 help(decimal)
Traceback (most recent call last): File "<pyshell#5>", line 1, in -toplevel- help(decimal) NameError: name 'decimal' is not defined [read docs for awhile ]
import decimal d1 = decimal.Decimal(2) d1 Decimal("2") type(d1) <class 'decimal.Decimal'> d1 + d1 Decimal("4") float(d1) 2.0
d1.prec()
Traceback (most recent call last): File "<pyshell#21>", line 1, in -toplevel- d1.prec() AttributeError: 'Decimal' object has no attribute 'prec' [read PEP in more depth]
decimal.getcontext() Context(prec=28, rounding=ROUND_HALF_EVEN, Emin=-999999999, Emax=999999999,
capitals=1, flags=[], traps=[DivisionByZero, Overflow, InvalidOperation])
c = decimal.getcontext() c.prec 28
Ah so... Kirby
help(decimal)
Traceback (most recent call last): File "<pyshell#5>", line 1, in -toplevel- help(decimal) NameError: name 'decimal' is not defined
help('decimal') would have worked, though. -- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
-----Original Message----- From: edu-sig-bounces@python.org [mailto:edu-sig-bounces@python.org] On Behalf Of Guido van Rossum Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2004 11:10 AM To: Kirby Urner Cc: edu-sig@python.org Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] OK, time for 2.4
help(decimal)
Traceback (most recent call last): File "<pyshell#5>", line 1, in -toplevel- help(decimal) NameError: name 'decimal' is not defined
help('decimal') would have worked, though.
Doesn't. But note that I don't 'import decimal' until later, then it works. IDLE 1.1a3
help(decimal)
Traceback (most recent call last): File "<pyshell#0>", line 1, in -toplevel- help(decimal) NameError: name 'decimal' is not defined Wondering why, in the help string it says: DESCRIPTION This is a Py2.3 implementation of decimal floating point arithmetic based on the General Decimal Arithmetic Specification: Why Py2.3? Just an oversight? Kirby
Kirby Urner schrieb:
... Wondering why, in the help string it says:
DESCRIPTION This is a Py2.3 implementation of decimal floating point arithmetic based on the General Decimal Arithmetic Specification:
Why Py2.3? Just an oversight?
No. It seems only to use features of python 2.3 (it's completely written in python). You may copy decimal.py to Python23/Lib and it will work with Python23 as well. Gregor
Kirby
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Thank you Gregor. I am not used to the idea that the dialect, pegged to a feature set and syntax, gets identified inside of later versions. Now that you point out how and why this makes perfect sense, I'm quite satisfied with that thinking. Thanks again. Kirby
-----Original Message----- From: Gregor Lingl [mailto:glingl@aon.at] Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 2:03 PM To: Kirby Urner Cc: edu-sig@python.org Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] OK, time for 2.4
Kirby Urner schrieb:
... Wondering why, in the help string it says:
DESCRIPTION This is a Py2.3 implementation of decimal floating point arithmetic based on the General Decimal Arithmetic Specification:
Why Py2.3? Just an oversight?
No. It seems only to use features of python 2.3 (it's completely written in python). You may copy decimal.py to Python23/Lib and it will work with Python23 as well. Gregor
Kirby
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-----Original Message----- From: edu-sig-bounces@python.org [mailto:edu-sig-bounces@python.org] On Behalf Of Kirby Urner Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2004 10:12 AM To: edu-sig@python.org Subject: [Edu-sig] Computer Languages via Immersion Experiences
I feel Kay has breached that implicit code.
The end.
Art
I haven't followed your thinking long enough or closely enough to understand how you came to this conclusion. So I can't offer any judgment re what I think of your train of reasoning.
The short, medium of long answer? The short answer is that pressure to overlook the obvious here the most distinct of the telltale signs that something is amiss. The medium answer is that when Kay addresses an auditorium full of educators convened by Disney while on the payroll of Disney, and addresses the room about the future of the education of our children he is doing either on behalf of Disney or on behalf of our children. Whichever one he is doing, he is being unfair to the other. And if he is asking us to believe there is no potential conflict, he is being outrageous and insulting in the extreme. Back to the short answer. I will try to keep the long answer short. Professional codes of conduct are never about actual conflict of interest. They are always about avoiding the *appearance* of conflict of interest. They are in place to protect the professional an well as the integrity of the profession. They are the heart of those codes, together with the fact that there is no contemplation of exceptions. No IQ test to pass. No vows of poverty to sign in blood. Well Kay is no longer at Disney. Let bygones be bygones. Well the fact that Croquet would immediately obsolete 87.2% (you can quote me on this) of the hardware sitting in our classrooms today should it be widely adopted would be easy to dismiss as the oversight of an impractical dreamer, if the impractical dreamer were not employed my a hardware manufacturer. Please. I don't seriously think that that is what is on Kay's mind, or part of his agenda. But it is totally unacceptable, on a professional level, nonetheless. Back to the short answer. Art
But it is totally unacceptable, on a professional level, nonetheless.
Back to the short answer.
Art
I think what you're talking about is pretending to an objective voice about something, while concealing your vested interest from the audience. An example would be hyping a stock, supposedly on its merits, whereas really you're just trying to sucker some folks into buying it, so you can cash in (being a holder of this stock yourself). Sort of the Enron scenario, with the principals urging their employees to dive in, even while they were in the midst of bailing out. Another example from my files: when Bucky Fuller and Werner Erhard crossed paths, late 70s early 80s, Fuller started saying positive things about Erhard. Then some newspaper story mentioned Fuller receiving some financial support from Erhard's est Foundation, and Fuller went ballistic. Fuller wrote to Erhard saying he'd better correct these false newspaper accounts immediately (Fuller had never applied for, nor received any grant from Erhard's operation), otherwise all the nice things he'd been saying about Erhard would suddenly appear to have no integrity -- like, of course Bucky is being all gushy, he's a paid spokesman for est (which wasn't true -- but even the *appearance* of a conflict, thanks to wrong reporting, could be highly problematic to the both of them). A few years later, CBS's '60 Minutes' trashed Erhard's reputation on national TV. Was there any conflict of interest here? Some scholars say there was: the producer of that segment was in bed with the scientologists, who had a longstanding vendetta against est (as revealed by internal Church of Scientology memos snarfed up by the FBI). When some of those with damning things to say later recanted, '60 Minutes' made no effort to follow-up. The wrong (and if there was one, it was egregious) was never righted, even to this day. Now let's turn to the case of Disney and Kay. If the financial arrangement is clear and public, then I don't see the problem. Disney is behaving like a think tank or even a university, and, through Kay, is going on record saying "we're endorsing this experimental prototype curriculum of tomorrow, based on Squeak, which is a kid-friendly implementation of SmallTalk." That's like MIT saying, through some faculty presenter, "we favor a formal approach to writing programs based on Scheme." No problem. Schools may be defined by the curricula they favor. Jesuits like Loyola's training. Erhard was partial to Zen. Different schools of thought exist, and compete for recruits. Or take a publisher of Python CS books helping to sponsor, and showing up at, an event that promotes Python as a good way to go. What's the problem? That's like O'Reilly sponsoring OSCON, and using the venue to sell books, promote Safari, and drive the open source community -- knowing from experience that a lot of its sales are owing to open source programmers and designers. Not a problem. The financial arrangements are not concealed, and no one begrudges Tim O'Reilly for having an agenda. Why shouldn't he? Bottom line: I see ways for a person like Kay to work for a company, think tank or university, and to present about Squeak or some other technology, without any appearance of impropriety. It just has to be clear what the arrangements are. The transparency must be sufficient to reveal any strings, running from the presenter to off-stage puppet masters. Or, as you say, at least the *appearance* of a conflict shouldn't be there -- so if there is one, and it's discovered to have been willfully concealed, then too bad for the players if their audience now feels deceived. In the case of Kay, I've never personally felt deceived (ditto re Erhard and Bucky -- not so sure about CBS and MIT, and of course Fox News has no integrity whatsoever (those concealed ties have been completely exposed)). Kirby
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 13:36:04 -0400, Arthur <ajsiegel@optonline.net> wrote:
The medium answer is that when Kay addresses an auditorium full of educators convened by Disney while on the payroll of Disney, and addresses the room about the future of the education of our children he is doing either on behalf of Disney or on behalf of our children. Whichever one he is doing, he is being unfair to the other. And if he is asking us to believe there is no potential conflict, he is being outrageous and insulting in the extreme.
Not that this is going to change Arthur's mind, but I can add a little context to his concerns about Disney in education. Disney made a very generous grant to a public charter school in Providence that aided the school's staff immensely in establishing an innovative and successful inner city school. All Disney wanted in return was to promote the project and thus gain good PR. This was probably eight years ago, and I imagine Disney was flush with money then. A couple years later I think they had to tighten their belts and virtually eliminated the entire project nationwide. I'm guessing, but I think Squeak's Disney period may have occurred in a similar timeframe. I would speculate that because these investments DIDN'T have strings attached, the limited PR benefit Disney was getting from them caused them to be axed when money became short. Nonetheless, schools that got grants still received hundreds of thousands of dollars that they wouldn't have seen otherwise. People who look for reasons to complain about the sources of money in primary and secondary education obviously don't work in schools, or at least not US schools. There are strings attached to every dollar, and government money these days has more strings than corporate money. In fact, the most successful strategy for funding a school seems to be to tell whatever the grantor whatever they want to hear, take their money, and then do whatever you were going to do in the first place, but I digress. Making blanket judgements about which sources of money are acceptable isn't a smart way to run a school. You have to look at each case and make an individual decision based on the entire context of both the product in question and the needs of your community. Tom Hoffman http://tuttlesvc.org
Tom writes -
Making blanket judgements about which sources of money are acceptable isn't a smart way to run a school. You have to look at each case and make an individual decision based on the entire context of both the product in question and the needs of your community.
Your response is a total digression from my point. Because my point was related to Kay's circumstances, not what Disney's motives may or may not have been. Or whether schools should take money from Disney or anybody else. Unless you are claiming that Disney had and has no interest in profit making pursuits related to kid's education. And therefore no potential for conflict existed. But of course that's absurd. But I'm probably not going to change your mind either. Art
Because my point was related to Kay's circumstances
But as far as I'm concerned, that point has yet to be made. http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2004-October/004035.html I hope you manage to clarify the nature of Mr. Kay's sin. Otherwise I'm pretty much done paying attention to your ongoing vilifications of this that and the other -- I have to at least see the logic in it, even if I don't agree with it. So far, it's all much too cryptic -- sounds like a lot of insider talk, with you being the only insider. Kirby
participants (5)
-
Arthur -
Gregor Lingl -
Guido van Rossum -
Kirby Urner -
Tom Hoffman