[Edu-sig] VPython on Alien Planet

[Kirby Urner]

Greetings earthlings --

For those of you with too much time on your hands, I thought I'd alert you
to a recent thread on Synergeo, a Yahoo eGroup:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/synergeo/

In this thread, one John Brawley, probably older than you think, tries to
wrap his head around VPython cylinders.  He's self-taught in Python, and is
in no way a CS major.  He cares about a pet theory, which involves geometry
and visualization:  so VPython to the rescue.  Except the cylinder stuff
seems to make no sense.

A guy named Anton, and myself, trying to explain the meaning of "axis" in
cylinder(pos=(x0,y0,z0), axis=(x1,y1,z1), radius=0.1) -- it's *not* the same
thing as "destination point."  I think John is confused in part because of
working with POV-Ray, which also has a cylinder command, but simply asks for
start and end points.  Way simple.

Zooming back, the bigger picture here is:  we've got a bunch of people,
finding each other through the Internet, talking about geometry and other
stuff, and using Python as a tool, perhaps without formal training or any CS
background.  It's a means to an end, and easy enough to master to get some
real work done, even if you're an old guy living with a bunch of cats in
some run down trailer (that's a caricature, not a true-to-life portrait of
Mr. Brawley).  

In other words:  computer programming for everyman (a more literary, and
gender-biased, rendition of the CP4E meaning).

Kirby

PS:  speaking of Yahoo eGroups, and Wittgenstein (a few days back), I'm also
pretty active here, in case anyone wants to jump in and join the chatter:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wittgenstein-dialognet/