From jeff at taupro.com Tue Jan 1 01:39:24 2008 From: jeff at taupro.com (Jeff Rush) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:39:24 -0600 Subject: [Edu-sig] OLPC news In-Reply-To: <8B13451D-F6E7-41C7-922C-67BA50B66417@solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> References: <47784840.3020007@taupro.com> <8B13451D-F6E7-41C7-922C-67BA50B66417@solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> Message-ID: <47798BBC.2000301@taupro.com> Ivan Krsti? wrote: > On Dec 30, 2007, at 8:39 PM, Jeff Rush wrote: >> Can you give contact info or a blog for this Walter Bender? > > Walter sends out weekly e-mail updates over the community-news list: > Ah, I read those updates but didn't twig on his name as the compiler. > For this, you want the Sugar list: > > > The entire Sugar team and virtually all activity developers subscribe to > the list, and even us systems-folk read it and post reasonably frequently. Thanks for the pointer, I am subscribed there now -- looking at the archives it still seems a bit low-traffic for something so very important. Hopefully as the XO's flow out this will pick up. (rushing off to a New Year's party with XO in hand to show...) -Jeff From kirby.urner at gmail.com Tue Jan 1 02:16:56 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:16:56 -0800 Subject: [Edu-sig] OLPC news In-Reply-To: <47798BBC.2000301@taupro.com> References: <47784840.3020007@taupro.com> <8B13451D-F6E7-41C7-922C-67BA50B66417@solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> <47798BBC.2000301@taupro.com> Message-ID: > (rushing off to a New Year's party with XO in hand to show...) > > > -Jeff Hah, Rushing is rushing, I suspected as much (just kidding). XO has a lot of support in Oregon, features in lots of parties (also Portland Barcamp [1]) but we've got Intel here too, pushing more traditional options for adults. I don't see this as a clash, as adults, set in their ways, are not the primary clientele for XOs, deliberately "for children" in their toy-like design, small keys, Shrek-like coloration. As I was explaining to Tara, this was done on purpose, to convey a "hands off" message to the field (don't steal candy from children). But of course in the cocktail party context G1G1 (give one get one) means lots of adults have these show and tell items, plus more than a few are bona fide developers and/or tech support types, starting to answer real needs from the field, where XO penetration, though smattery, is nevertheless real. Cynics among us think the little green monsters are little more than recruiting devices for MIT and its open source courseware. I don't deny that name recognition is part of it, but hey, Python benefits by the same token, as does Smalltalk, once our clientele starts browsing a little, absorbing the history. Some of our PPUG members are XO developers, others work at Intel. I suppose we might see cross-platform in some dimensions, as py is py, just as html is html (yes, an oversimplification I realize). Per my recent posting on OLPC, G1G1 is pushing out through coffee shops on flatscreens in this neighborhood.[2] LA is a hotbed of open sorcery, I've come to discover, maybe not up to Portland's level in some respects, but nothing to sneeze at (Hollywood feeds in -- many celebrities are banking on the success of our design science futurism, although that's not a namespace all would use). Re parties, mine is kinda dweeby this evening, featuring a ball falling at 9 PM (midnight Philadelphia time). We Quakers are fixated on Philly for historical reasons (long story). Then I'd plan on doing something rad, but I'm a fish out of water in LA (Whittier) -- I don't really know Halle Berry that well.[3] Kirby Urner City of Angels [1] http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2007/05/qyoobin.html [2] http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2007-December/008385.html [3] http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2137134480771470882 From kirby.urner at gmail.com Mon Jan 14 20:08:22 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:08:22 -0800 Subject: [Edu-sig] Continuing old threads... Message-ID: Greetings edu-siggers. I've continued with threads started here, brainstormed about, in other places within our community, or in a trading post with other language communities. For example: Pythonic Algebra http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2008/01/pythonic-algebra.html (note link to math-thinking-l) Rich Data Structures http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2008/01/rich-data-structures.html (we did a lot on that here) Locally speaking, I'm still mixed up in the charter schools business, with emerging ties to Alaska. Per usual with me (consistent with my postings in this archive), I'm saying Python works well as a math learning tool. Some administrators want to try it, some of those by training teachers first, others with no teachers (because of the shortage), only peers. Looking forward to Pycon/Chicago, Kirby From feliciagershberg at yahoo.com Fri Jan 18 17:22:26 2008 From: feliciagershberg at yahoo.com (Felicia Gershberg) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:22:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Edu-sig] graphics on mac Message-ID: <749405.29519.qm@web35610.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Hi - I am teaching Python programming to a small group of 5th graders on Macs with OS-X. We have Python 2.3.5. I'd like to be able to do simple graphics with them, but I haven't been able to find any reference for graphics calls (Carbon?) or even how to get a graphics window - at least, not anything that works. Can anyone provide any guidance? Note that I probably can't download anything that is not already installed on the Macs, because these are in the school computer lab, and I am a parent volunteer with no admin privileges. Thanks! Felicia Felicia B. Gershberg, M.A.T., Ph.D., m.o.m. PACT School http://pactschool.net/ South Bay Preparatory Charter School http://www.southbayprep.org/ ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/attachments/20080118/d91311a2/attachment.htm From winstonw at stratolab.com Fri Jan 18 17:48:51 2008 From: winstonw at stratolab.com (Winston Wolff) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:48:51 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] graphics on mac In-Reply-To: <749405.29519.qm@web35610.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <749405.29519.qm@web35610.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I think built in, you are limited to turtle graphics. If you can install something, you could use my MakeBot/MoonUnit system. It does very nice graphics. I use it to teach middle school kids and it works great. ( http://stratolab.com/misc/makebot ) You could probably build something with Cocoa, but that would be some work. --winston On Jan 18, 2008, at 11:22 AM, Felicia Gershberg wrote: > Hi - > I am teaching Python programming to a small group of 5th graders on > Macs with OS-X. We have Python 2.3.5. I'd like to be able to do > simple graphics with them, but I haven't been able to find any > reference for graphics calls (Carbon?) or even how to get a graphics > window - at least, not anything that works. Can anyone provide any > guidance? > > Note that I probably can't download anything that is not already > installed on the Macs, because these are in the school computer lab, > and I am a parent volunteer with no admin privileges. > Thanks! > Felicia > > Felicia B. Gershberg, M.A.T., Ph.D., m.o.m. > PACT School > http://pactschool.net/ > South Bay Preparatory Charter School > http://www.southbayprep.org/ > > > Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig Winston Wolff Stratolab - Kids exploring computers, comics, and robots (646) 827-2242 - http://stratolab.com From mdipierro at cs.depaul.edu Fri Jan 18 18:02:29 2008 From: mdipierro at cs.depaul.edu (Massimo Di Pierro) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:02:29 -0600 Subject: [Edu-sig] graphics on mac In-Reply-To: References: <749405.29519.qm@web35610.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Not quite true, there is Tkinter (ships with python 2.3, 2.4 and 2.4 and is cross platform graphics) Here is an example of Space Invaders in 30 lines of Python code and nothing but standard libraries. http://web.mac.com/mdipierro/iWeb/Site/Blog/18661675- EBFF-47A0-9737-86308F2B75BC.html Massimo On Jan 18, 2008, at 10:48 AM, Winston Wolff wrote: > I think built in, you are limited to turtle graphics. If you can > install something, you could use my MakeBot/MoonUnit system. It does > very nice graphics. I use it to teach middle school kids and it works > great. ( http://stratolab.com/misc/makebot ) > > You could probably build something with Cocoa, but that would be some > work. > > --winston > > > On Jan 18, 2008, at 11:22 AM, Felicia Gershberg wrote: > >> Hi - >> I am teaching Python programming to a small group of 5th graders on >> Macs with OS-X. We have Python 2.3.5. I'd like to be able to do >> simple graphics with them, but I haven't been able to find any >> reference for graphics calls (Carbon?) or even how to get a graphics >> window - at least, not anything that works. Can anyone provide any >> guidance? >> >> Note that I probably can't download anything that is not already >> installed on the Macs, because these are in the school computer lab, >> and I am a parent volunteer with no admin privileges. >> Thanks! >> Felicia >> >> Felicia B. Gershberg, M.A.T., Ph.D., m.o.m. >> PACT School >> http://pactschool.net/ >> South Bay Preparatory Charter School >> http://www.southbayprep.org/ >> >> >> Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. >> _______________________________________________ >> Edu-sig mailing list >> Edu-sig at python.org >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > Winston Wolff > Stratolab - Kids exploring computers, comics, and robots > (646) 827-2242 - http://stratolab.com > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig From kirby.urner at gmail.com Fri Jan 18 18:16:09 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 09:16:09 -0800 Subject: [Edu-sig] graphics on mac In-Reply-To: <749405.29519.qm@web35610.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <749405.29519.qm@web35610.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > Note that I probably can't download anything that is not already installed > on the Macs, because these are in the school computer lab, and I am a parent > volunteer with no admin privileges. > Thanks! > Felicia > > Felicia B. Gershberg, M.A.T., Ph.D., m.o.m. Not a Mac expert here (far from it), but just wanted to comment how many schools I've encountered where the approach is to deliberately dumb down the expensive capabilities of their systems, as a substitute for paying a real sysop to do it right. One of my gigs awhile back was for a local police department that, to its credit, noticed it was mainly scaring kids about cyberspace, whereas this was also likely their future i.e. if this were no fun, what was to keep 'em from giving up and joining gangs? So how do the pros do it, i.e. show 'em the ropes, make 'em feel at home, as if this were all theirs to inherit someday. In their worst nightmares, we'd be teaching 'em how to packet sniff with Ethereal in like the first lesson, explaining about Squid, firewalls, routers, all the rest of it -- which is exactly what we did. But George was way cool about it (exFBI). We let him sit in. But that's not how it works in your normal school, with teachers paralyzed with fear (Python! egads!), and never doing anything much about it as the years fly by, another batch of know-nothings graduated. Oh well, too bad for them. Not my problem. Kirby From varmaa at gmail.com Fri Jan 18 18:35:09 2008 From: varmaa at gmail.com (Atul Varma) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 09:35:09 -0800 Subject: [Edu-sig] graphics on mac In-Reply-To: References: <749405.29519.qm@web35610.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <361b27370801180935h350e4c55vef0b96b23c1778f@mail.gmail.com> Have you looked at pyglet? I'm not sure if it works with Python 2.3, but I saw a demonstration of it at a Chicago Python User Group meeting a few months ago and it appeared to both have very few dependencies as well as a clean and straightforward API. I have done Cocoa graphics programming using Python via PyObjC, and while it's not particularly hard, it is a bit ugly-looking simply due to the syntax used when sending messages to Objective-C objects. If you like, though, I can send you some basic code to get you started. Also, is your school planning on upgrading to Leopard at any point? One big advantage of it is that it comes with Python 2.5 and a number of nice Mac-specific modules built-in (such as PyObjC). - Atul On Jan 18, 2008 9:16 AM, kirby urner wrote: > > Note that I probably can't download anything that is not already installed > > on the Macs, because these are in the school computer lab, and I am a parent > > volunteer with no admin privileges. > > Thanks! > > Felicia > > > > Felicia B. Gershberg, M.A.T., Ph.D., m.o.m. > > Not a Mac expert here (far from it), but just wanted to comment how > many schools I've encountered where the approach is to deliberately > dumb down the expensive capabilities of their systems, as a substitute > for paying a real sysop to do it right. > > One of my gigs awhile back was for a local police department that, > to its credit, noticed it was mainly scaring kids about cyberspace, > whereas this was also likely their future i.e. if this were no fun, what > was to keep 'em from giving up and joining gangs? > > So how do the pros do it, i.e. show 'em the ropes, make 'em feel > at home, as if this were all theirs to inherit someday. > > In their worst nightmares, we'd be teaching 'em how to packet sniff > with Ethereal in like the first lesson, explaining about Squid, firewalls, > routers, all the rest of it -- which is exactly what we did. But George > was way cool about it (exFBI). We let him sit in. > > But that's not how it works in your normal school, with teachers > paralyzed with fear (Python! egads!), and never doing anything much > about it as the years fly by, another batch of know-nothings graduated. > > Oh well, too bad for them. Not my problem. > > Kirby > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > From varmaa at gmail.com Fri Jan 18 18:40:25 2008 From: varmaa at gmail.com (Atul Varma) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 09:40:25 -0800 Subject: [Edu-sig] graphics on mac In-Reply-To: <361b27370801180935h350e4c55vef0b96b23c1778f@mail.gmail.com> References: <749405.29519.qm@web35610.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <361b27370801180935h350e4c55vef0b96b23c1778f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <361b27370801180940k348e97bbwd884589acd9aef95@mail.gmail.com> Oh, sorry I didn't link to it in my first post; here's the link to pyglet: http://www.pyglet.org/ - Atul On Jan 18, 2008 9:35 AM, Atul Varma wrote: > Have you looked at pyglet? I'm not sure if it works with Python 2.3, > but I saw a demonstration of it at a Chicago Python User Group meeting > a few months ago and it appeared to both have very few dependencies as > well as a clean and straightforward API. > > I have done Cocoa graphics programming using Python via PyObjC, and > while it's not particularly hard, it is a bit ugly-looking simply due > to the syntax used when sending messages to Objective-C objects. If > you like, though, I can send you some basic code to get you started. > > Also, is your school planning on upgrading to Leopard at any point? > One big advantage of it is that it comes with Python 2.5 and a number > of nice Mac-specific modules built-in (such as PyObjC). > > - Atul > > > On Jan 18, 2008 9:16 AM, kirby urner wrote: > > > Note that I probably can't download anything that is not already installed > > > on the Macs, because these are in the school computer lab, and I am a parent > > > volunteer with no admin privileges. > > > Thanks! > > > Felicia > > > > > > Felicia B. Gershberg, M.A.T., Ph.D., m.o.m. > > > > Not a Mac expert here (far from it), but just wanted to comment how > > many schools I've encountered where the approach is to deliberately > > dumb down the expensive capabilities of their systems, as a substitute > > for paying a real sysop to do it right. > > > > One of my gigs awhile back was for a local police department that, > > to its credit, noticed it was mainly scaring kids about cyberspace, > > whereas this was also likely their future i.e. if this were no fun, what > > was to keep 'em from giving up and joining gangs? > > > > So how do the pros do it, i.e. show 'em the ropes, make 'em feel > > at home, as if this were all theirs to inherit someday. > > > > In their worst nightmares, we'd be teaching 'em how to packet sniff > > with Ethereal in like the first lesson, explaining about Squid, firewalls, > > routers, all the rest of it -- which is exactly what we did. But George > > was way cool about it (exFBI). We let him sit in. > > > > But that's not how it works in your normal school, with teachers > > paralyzed with fear (Python! egads!), and never doing anything much > > about it as the years fly by, another batch of know-nothings graduated. > > > > Oh well, too bad for them. Not my problem. > > > > Kirby > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Edu-sig mailing list > > Edu-sig at python.org > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > > From goldwamh at slu.edu Fri Jan 18 18:53:50 2008 From: goldwamh at slu.edu (Michael H. Goldwasser) Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:53:50 -0600 Subject: [Edu-sig] graphics on mac In-Reply-To: <749405.29519.qm@web35610.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <749405.29519.qm@web35610.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <18320.59310.620943.101410@euclid.slu.edu> Hello Felicia, We have recently released a package named cs1graphics that is specifically designed for educational use. It is publicly available at http://www.cs1graphics.org, along with documentation and a tutorial. We think it would be very approachable for 5th graders and I'd be interested to get feedback if you try it out. As for technical requirements, it is based upon Tkinter. For 10.4 you should be able to download our package and use it directly with the Python 2.3.5 that comes on your system. Earler versions of OS X included Tkinter as well, but it was not directly supported from within aqua; instead it could be run from an xterm if X11 were installed. With regard, Michael Goldwasser On Friday January 18, 2008, Felicia Gershberg wrote: > Hi - > I am teaching Python programming to a small group of 5th graders on Macs with OS-X. We have Python 2.3.5. I'd like to be able to do simple graphics with them, but I haven't been able to find any reference for graphics calls (Carbon?) or even how to get a graphics window - at least, not anything that works. Can anyone provide any guidance? > > Note that I probably can't download anything that is not already installed on the Macs, because these are in the school computer lab, and I am a parent volunteer with no admin privileges. > Thanks! > Felicia > > Felicia B. Gershberg, M.A.T., Ph.D., m.o.m. > PACT School > http://pactschool.net/ > > South Bay Preparatory Charter School > > http://www.southbayprep.org/ +----------------------------------------------- | Michael Goldwasser | Associate Professor | Dept. Mathematics and Computer Science | Saint Louis University | 220 North Grand Blvd. | St. Louis, MO 63103-2007 From asweigart at gmail.com Mon Jan 21 22:36:27 2008 From: asweigart at gmail.com (Albert Sweigart) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:36:27 -0800 Subject: [Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 54, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <716dd5b60801211336w1c6e0173i9d17ee2fd74fda9e@mail.gmail.com> I am currently writing a book aimed at the general 9 to 12 year old range that teaches Python through game programming. The style of the book is mostly "here's the (simple) game's source code, type it in, run it, and now I will explain how to works" format that the book I learned BASIC programming with at that age (Fred Dignazio's Invent Your Own Computer Games). The book is located here: http://pythonbook.coffeeghost.net In the later chapters, I was going to use PyGame for the games that used graphics and sound (though I am also looking into Pyglet). My question for the list is, would you advise going with Tkinter instead of PyGame/Pyglet? I have no experience with Tkinter, but the idea of a cross-platform library that comes bundled with even old versions of Python is very appealing. Any suggestions? Albert Sweigart -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/attachments/20080121/be633e56/attachment.htm From kirby.urner at gmail.com Tue Jan 22 00:02:41 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:02:41 -0800 Subject: [Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 54, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: <716dd5b60801211336w1c6e0173i9d17ee2fd74fda9e@mail.gmail.com> References: <716dd5b60801211336w1c6e0173i9d17ee2fd74fda9e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I have a fairly high opinion of Tk. Not "instead of" Pygame though. More "let's compare these tools, see what they do". Some Tk game-related scripts attach here (not by me, I may be no help with code problems): http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2007/10/ppug-cubespace.html wxPython also has a following, thanks especially to Kevin Altis of PythonCard fame. He's done a good Life, turtle stuff... http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2006/07/gotta-luv-that-gui-goo.html Kirby 2008/1/21 Albert Sweigart : > I am currently writing a book aimed at the general 9 to 12 year old range > that teaches Python through game programming. The style of the book is > mostly "here's the (simple) game's source code, type it in, run it, and now > I will explain how to works" format that the book I learned BASIC > programming with at that age (Fred Dignazio's Invent Your Own Computer > Games). > > The book is located here: > http://pythonbook.coffeeghost.net > > In the later chapters, I was going to use PyGame for the games that used > graphics and sound (though I am also looking into Pyglet). > > My question for the list is, would you advise going with Tkinter instead of > PyGame/Pyglet? I have no experience with Tkinter, but the idea of a > cross-platform library that comes bundled with even old versions of Python > is very appealing. Any suggestions? > > Albert Sweigart > > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > From goodmansond at gmail.com Tue Jan 22 21:41:04 2008 From: goodmansond at gmail.com (DeanG) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:41:04 -0600 Subject: [Edu-sig] Pycon 2008 Financial Aid Message-ID: PyCon 2008 Financial Aid information is now posted: http://us.pycon.org/2008/registration/financial-aid/ From kirby.urner at gmail.com Sun Jan 27 01:45:13 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:45:13 -0800 Subject: [Edu-sig] Another update from Urner... Message-ID: Greetings edu-siggers -- I'm supposed to be enroute to the gym already, but am having trouble assembling all parts of my costume, so side-tripping into "cyberia" again. Just blogged re the tetrakaidecahedron -- how many others did that today? Given how many millions of blogs, probably a few (hey, Zeitgeist, ya know?). Just registered for Pycon I wanted to say. Looking forward. So, on the math teaching front, I've been facilitating connections twixt Alaska and Oregon, charter school stuff, will maybe blog about it more down the road (too much in play at the moment, not worth trying to capture in prose at this point (LEP High has a lot of spanking new Edubuntu terminals, that much I'll mention)). So yeah, on the one hand: energy (what the physics and chemistry teachers feel on board with, as a unifying concept, with power = E/t and so on -- talking units, Newtonian Era stuff). On the other hand: algorithms, such as execute on a computer, be that an XO, or (in older jargon) a human being. Of course as computer geeks, we believe in automating tedious grunt work (a lot of my job). We empathize with those monks and/or clerical staff told to work out inter- polation tables. "If only we had a machine" they would pray (so worried about typos, inaccuracies that could sink ships). Voila, Python (etc.). Prayers answered. On the energy front, I'm still thinking First Person Physics and looking forward to civilian action figures like Roz Savage, not fiction, not Rambo, featuring in our lesson plans, spending their hard earned calories like mad (she rowed across the Atlantic, mushed dawgs more recently) **. That's the true meaning of "action figure" in my book (like Lara Croft, but not tomb raiding -- so more like Lara Logan, or Angelina for real). On the algorithms front, we've got the emergin Algebra City curriculum i.e. that whole history of Zero coming by camel train through Baghdad (lots of value added), then by boat (merchant marine), to Italy, where that Pisa guy, Fibonacci, picks up our tale, gives us little two-liners, the kind of stuff we can use in Project Renaissance [tm] curriculum materials. I've gone through all that a million times on this list, so I'll spare you the redundancy, just exult a little more about Pippy on the XO, even if the Fibonaccis or Pascals aren't written as generators (an iterable type) in the current edition (always room to grow and change, now that G1G1 has pumped so much capital into it -- so many XOs around North America these days, especially in LA). OK, that's about it from my corner, unless anyone has questions. More later, see some of you at Pycon no doubt, Kirby 4D Solutions Portland, Oregon ** http://www.rozsavage.com/ """ I'm just in the process of developing an educational section for my website, in collaboration with a team at the University of Minnesota ( which is where I was dogsledding, not Alaska!). """ [ from today's inbox, good news ] From jan.ulrich at hasecke.com Mon Jan 28 13:16:43 2008 From: jan.ulrich at hasecke.com (Jan Ulrich Hasecke) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:16:43 +0100 Subject: [Edu-sig] Programmers missing Message-ID: <6A6B51CC-DF69-4431-A91E-A461BD8CB478@hasecke.com> Was it already posted here? http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/CrossTalk/2008/01/0801DewarSchonberg.html juh -- www.sudelbuch.de Satiren und Essays -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: PGP.sig Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 186 bytes Desc: Signierter Teil der Nachricht Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/attachments/20080128/b345d14e/attachment.pgp From andre.roberge at gmail.com Mon Jan 28 14:53:46 2008 From: andre.roberge at gmail.com (Andre Roberge) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:53:46 -0400 Subject: [Edu-sig] Programmers missing In-Reply-To: <6A6B51CC-DF69-4431-A91E-A461BD8CB478@hasecke.com> References: <6A6B51CC-DF69-4431-A91E-A461BD8CB478@hasecke.com> Message-ID: <7528bcdd0801280553w7a98e9efve444c9c09f4c8bc@mail.gmail.com> 2008/1/28 Jan Ulrich Hasecke : > Was it already posted here? > > http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/CrossTalk/2008/01/0801DewarSchonberg.html > No, it was not posted (afaik). Thanks for the link. I find it interesting that no attention seems to be given to the fact that a language like Python provides a "clean" and natural translation of algorithms - when one focus on explaining a certain algorithm and demonstrating its use, it would seem natural to avoid having to deal with syntactical obfuscation. Then again, given the authors professional attachment ("Adacore"), it is not entirely surprising that emphasis is given to Ada... Andr? > juh > > -- > www.sudelbuch.de > Satiren und Essays > > > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig at python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > From kirby.urner at gmail.com Mon Jan 28 20:37:30 2008 From: kirby.urner at gmail.com (kirby urner) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:37:30 -0800 Subject: [Edu-sig] graphics on mac In-Reply-To: References: <749405.29519.qm@web35610.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Jan 18, 2008 9:16 AM, kirby urner wrote: > So how do the pros do it, i.e. show 'em the ropes, make 'em feel > at home, as if this were all theirs to inherit someday. > > In their worst nightmares, we'd be teaching 'em how to packet sniff > with Ethereal in like the first lesson, explaining about Squid, firewalls, > routers, all the rest of it -- which is exactly what we did. But George > was way cool about it (exFBI). We let him sit in. I plan to blog about Hacker Ethics sometime soon, partly in reference to the above (I'll add a link), as maybe this gives the impression that we were somehow advocating irresponsibly breaking the rules (not likely, with George hovering) -- as if real hackers are just crackers with no ethics. On the contrary, we earn respect for our (often more liberal) license agreements because we make a special point of reading and honoring theirs. In using Ethereal that first day, we mostly just wanted our gnubees to understand about "the stack" i.e. that applications sit atop TCP/IP and a physical transport layer. Intercepting some application traffic, dissecting a few packets, is what Ethereal is good at, and we weren't breaking any laws. Also, we were doing what George and his friends wanted us to do: heightening awareness of how it's easy enough to compromise your own privacy (and perhaps therefore security) if you don't understand your environment, how all the technology works, fits together. School is about learning survival skills, or should be, so it's not just about watching for pervs in chat rooms. You'll also want to have on your radar the possibility of people in coffee shops sucking down your unencrypted packets just to read others' emails. Maybe you *want* them to do that (like you're a "selective leaker" -- some kind of political operative or something). Put another way: "intelligent paranoia" is simply another word for "alert". The problem is "paranoia" is by definition a psychopathology and is intimately tied to ignorance, i.e. so many people go the other direction, hunker down, never enjoy the freedoms of the Internet, because they're so unclear about its inner workings that the think just one key press, or one Python on the school server, and mean everyone seeing into their bank account or being able to change their own grades, medical records or whatever. "School in Cyberia" is all about getting street wise in various ways, in order to enjoy it in relative safety. Yes, you daredevils might still take some calculated risks from time to time, but at least you presumably know the odds, have a strong grasp of reality. Too many of our schools just turn their backs on the issue, leaving adults and children alike to flounder in this brave "new" world of hoaxers and shysters, as up to no good as ever (like the bad guys ain't stupid, so why should you be?). Kirby > > But that's not how it works in your normal school, with teachers > paralyzed with fear (Python! egads!), and never doing anything much > about it as the years fly by, another batch of know-nothings graduated. > > Oh well, too bad for them. Not my problem. > > Kirby > From dreed at capital.edu Mon Jan 28 21:07:34 2008 From: dreed at capital.edu (David Reed) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:07:34 -0500 Subject: [Edu-sig] Programmers missing In-Reply-To: <7528bcdd0801280553w7a98e9efve444c9c09f4c8bc@mail.gmail.com> References: <6A6B51CC-DF69-4431-A91E-A461BD8CB478@hasecke.com> <7528bcdd0801280553w7a98e9efve444c9c09f4c8bc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2CA5E6A3-6528-4089-8D12-CA84805F2423@capital.edu> On Jan 28, 2008, at 8:53 AM, Andre Roberge wrote: > 2008/1/28 Jan Ulrich Hasecke : >> Was it already posted here? >> >> http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/CrossTalk/2008/01/0801DewarSchonberg.html >> > > No, it was not posted (afaik). Thanks for the link. > > I find it interesting that no attention seems to be given to the fact > that a language like Python provides a "clean" and natural translation > of algorithms - when one focus on explaining a certain algorithm and > demonstrating its use, it would seem natural to avoid having to deal > with syntactical obfuscation. > > Then again, given the authors professional attachment ("Adacore"), it > is not entirely surprising that emphasis is given to Ada... > > Andr? > >> juh I ran across another article that quoted him recently (it was linked in the three times a week ACM news email earlier this month). http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3722876 While I agree with some of what he says, I don't think there is any harm in teaching a "simpler/higher level" language in the first course as long as students are exposed to lower level languages in other courses. We have found that Python is great for beginners and then we teach our students C++ in our two algorithms and data structures courses. This lets our students focus on problem solving in the first course w/o worrying about the more complex syntax of C++ (and we can write more interesting assignments in CS1 with Python). In the second course we then transition to C++ so students learn a lower level language and need to understand memory management. I think the combination of these two languages (one that provides rich data structures and does memory management and one that essentially requires you to write everything from scratch) gives students a great background no matter what language they will need to learn to use in their careers. Dave David M. Reed, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Computer Science Capital University dreed at capital.edu http://capital2.capital.edu/faculty/dreed