[Edu-sig] Hello from Kirby in Oregon

Kirby Urner pdx4d@teleport.com
Wed, 02 Feb 2000 15:32:26 -0800


I don't know how few of us there are here at this point 
-- I'd like to share this again later perhaps...

http://www.inetarena.com/~pdx4d/ocn/oop7.html

is my sort of "Python headquarters" page, where I link 
to most of what I've done around Python -- that page 
being itself the last chapter in a seven chapter "book" 
I started writing quite some time ago (before I'd run 
across Python).

More recently (like yesterday), I sort of stumbled 
into the Scheme folks at Rice University.  There was 
some initial smoldering at first, but I feel we 
reached a good place in the aftermath (like, I've 
had some useful follow-up correspondence with 
Shriram Krishnamurthi, and have downloaded DrScheme
in preparation for study).  You'll find some links 
documenting that experience as well.

I do not consider myself a Python guru or anything.
What excited me about it was how quickly I could learn
it, and how easily it wrapped itself around my 
application.  True, I'd already done this polyhedron
job in Xbase and Java -- most things are easier on
the 3rd try -- but I felt the language really worked
with the grain of my thinking, made clear my approach,
which was to use polyhedra as paradigm "objects" in
both the geometric sense, but in the OOP sense as well.

For more on my vision of how OOP might become more
integral within K-12 (this vision is not really 
language-specific, though of course Python is one 
way to go), see:
http://www.inetarena.com/~pdx4d/ocn/trends2000.html

Reserving the right to post this again down the road,
if it turns out I'm just talking to myself in a big
empty room. :-D

Kirby
4D Solutions
Portland, Oregon