[Edu-sig] Python in the news...

[Calcpage]

Hello Kirby et al,

OK, you guys should be very proud of me.  I've been dabbling on the  
outskirts of your fine python community until recently.  I entered  
your world via a back door of sorts.  I was looking for a new  
curriculum for my intro CompSci students and found Gary Litvin's new  
text "Mathematics for the Digital Age" which details a course in  
Discrete Mathematics with an emphasis on Pythonic Math.  I was using  
SAGE with these students all year until now.  Unfortunately, I've met  
with a lot of lag and downtime using the various online SAGE servers  
recently.  So, I finally broke down and installed a FTP/SFTP server  
just for this class using Ubuntu Linux and I installed Python and  
IDLE. We've been writing python scripts for 2 weeks now and we're not  
looking back!

Enjoy,
A. Jorge Garcia
Applied Math & CS
Baldwin SHS & Nassau CC
http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/calcpage2009
Sent from my iPod

On Dec 13, 2010, at 5:36 PM, kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 11:24 AM, Vern Ceder <vceder at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for both versions, Kirby! I'll take the applause wherever/ 
> however I can get it. ;)
>
>
> That's cool.  You've been a good Giles, a role I can also relate too.
>
> I'm not into COM/Windows much, but the basic example is a neat way  
> to illustrate threading... I'll have to remember to steal it, maybe  
> for the classes I teach to our 8th graders. ;)
>
>
> Yeah, me either until recently.  Good example of a host environment  
> wrapping an alien "egg" (in this case a Python COM object) and  
> continuing to run its own process, even while triggering running  
> code in this other language.
>
> I'm beholden to the Medusa metaphor of asynchronous event handling.   
> A thread is a lot like a Python generator in that it time shares  
> through next iterations.  Twisted is what became of her, outside of  
> Zope.
>
>
> Speaking of 8th graders, these days I'm also teaching online Python  
> courses for middle school kids through Northwestern's Gifted  
> Learrning Links program - an intro to Python using Hello World! and  
> (starting in January) an intermediate Python class, which will do  
> more with OOP concepts and GUI's. The link  is here (the  
> intermediate course isn't up yet, but should be soon) - http://www.ctd.northwestern.edu/gll/courses/enrichment/winter2011/#Technology
>
>
> This is all good.  I've been back in touch with the VPython  
> principal, Bruce Sherwood, to compare notes.  He used to get guff  
> from Arthur on this list, yet they found a symbiotic pattern around  
> Numpy.
>
> For those more recently joining us:  Arthur was our friend in the  
> NYC financial sector who jumped onto Python + VPython in a big way,  
> to develop his Pygeo projective geometry toolkit.
>
> I'd hoped to see him at a GWU / Pycon, one of Steve Holden's events,  
> but that's the year my wife needed me home pronto (I was already in  
> DC for a Bucky Fuller symposium, also at GWU).
>
> As it was, we had a good dinner with David Lansky and his kids, in  
> New York City itself.  Some kind of ethnic pancake place, upper east  
> side.
>
> Anyway, just reminiscing about some of our players.  The Python  
> community is pretty stellar, although I'm also blown away by Perl's.
>
> I just haven't met that many Ruby people yet.  I should probably go  
> to some Rubicons, if that's what they're called.
>
> One of my favorite Java programmers is Gerald de Jong, who pretty  
> much invented the field of Elastic Interval Geometry.  Here's one of  
> his Youtubes.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6I3utbJ1M8
>
> See springie.com by Tim Tyler for another excellent example of an  
> EIG application.
>
> These days Gerald is the solo programmer on a multi-user game called  
> Tetragotchi.  He's amazing.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xis6QxneccM (someone filming beta  
> tetragotchi)
>
> Kirby
>
>
> PS:  I need to stick a Queue object on the head of my jellyfish  
> (Medusa COM object).  As FoxPro calls in, yelling "route me a  
> truck", I'll queue the request, not unlike an httprequest.  Indeed,  
> some might ask "why not use XML-RPC"?  Well, you'd still have the  
> same dynamic of needing to return a "job ticket" right away, then  
> have the caller come back for the dry cleaning another time.  So  
> asynchronous thinking would be involved.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
> Vern
>
>
>
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