[Edu-sig] Tips for wandering faculty

[Michael Tobis]

Ian, among his talents, has a knack for terse, interesting
generalizations. His style is so laid back that sometimes I wonder if
other people notice how clever some of the things he says are. For
instance:

"we shouldn't mistake design
problems for deep and useful ideas.  There's hard and deep and useful
ideas too; I'm just pointing out that not all hard things are deep or
useful"

That's a keeper.

On the other hand, let me remind everyone that many people despair of
this list because it spends too much time on impractical generalities.

So I would add that we shouldn't mistake interesting conversations for
progress. Many of the topics raised here are hard and deep but, at
least for present purposes, still not very useful.

I believe should keep the conversation germane to the intersection of
Python and education, specifically, to the development of Python tools
that are relevant to education.

I don't know what the twentieth precept is, but I nominate:

"La perfection est atteinte non quand il ne reste rien a ajouter, mais
quand il ne reste rien a enlever" -Antoine de St Exupery

Let's try to say less and say it better.

mt