[Edu-sig] Cute link for the Willamette CS Department

You'll enjoy this: http://norvig.com/21-days.html --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

[Edu-sig] Re: Naming in Python

... For the curious, the other peeve is: def function(... if expression: return True else: return False instead of: def function(... return expression --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list

[Edu-sig] Re: Computer-Adaptive Test of Python

the student at 80% correct in several kinds of subject areas. The learning rate they found on those systems was substantially greater than one grade-level per year without extra contact hours. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu

[Edu-sig] Re: Best approach to teaching OOP and graphics

to get a small display going. Really easier than most 2-D packages I've seen to start with, and you get to roll it around. If you are at PyCon, talk to Kirby about his experiences using it in his classes. /Linda -- -- Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED

[Edu-sig] Re: Graphical Programming and OOP

less than simple. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

[Edu-sig] Re: Integration correction

of (and returning) functions. I would think generators belong fairly soon after functions of functions. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

[Edu-sig] Re: Integration correction

Kirby Urner wrote: Again, I think you're probably right, that this particular example is perverse. Edu-sig is a scratch pad for bad ideas too. :-D Sorry, Kirby, I see we all seemed to jump on top of you here. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED

Re: [Edu-sig] Python for CS101

to lose this no magic here by side-tracking C to an extended exercise. I'd put it in an architecture class, perhaps. At least C (and preferably some native assembly) code should be early in a curriculum, but certainly CS101 is not the time. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED

Re: [Edu-sig] Programming Exercises

need to tell us what yu are interested in / would like to do. Do you want to find eigenvectors? Do you want to do GUI work? -- -- Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman

Re: [Edu-sig] Programming Exercises

tests for new behavior, watch them fail, and fix the source until it works. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Another loop around

because it is far from obvious when you have enough rigor and when you don't. Math, to them, seems like a game with a few rules missing. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo

Re: [Edu-sig] A case against GUIs in intro CS :-)

poetry; you read a bit, reflect a lot, and then read a bit more. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] A case against GUIs in intro CS :-)

of practical and enough theory to steer it. He is also one of the few practical programming authors to write about how to write in SQL without picking a single vendor and teaching you how to use their product. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu

Re: [Edu-sig] Explaining Classes and Objects

to teach in that you need to go slowly -- the changes made by inheritance take a while to get. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Design patterns

* self.a * self.c)) self.C = math.acos((self.a**2 + self.b**2 - self.c**2) / (2.0 * self.a * self.b)) --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.python.org/mailman

Re: [Edu-sig] Design patterns

. If you want to keep anything as properties, I'd keep the ones those properties with the least dynamic nature. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Design patterns

of assignments where the requirements swerve, showing the value of malleability in code design. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Design patterns

of decoupling an API from its current implementation. I do claim it provides another tool to express a properly decoupled API. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Design patterns

game (2) single game with observers (3) game with observers w/o enough info to cheat by players. (4) multi-game server. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman

Re: [Edu-sig] Design Patterns

of systems programming style programming. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Design Patterns

implementation show through too much. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] quantum instance?

self._active.radius = value You could read up on __getattr__, __getattribute__, and friends in the Language References section 3.3.2: Customizing attribute access --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] quantum instance

Arthur wrote: Scott David Daniels wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think teaching programming outside a context - as an abstract discipline - is unavoidably problematic in this regard. I would have more sympathy if you would subscribe to the same philosophy for geometry and mathematics

Re: [Edu-sig] quantum instance

with their gut? It is one thing to make ivory tower decisions, and another to know the impact a decision might have. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] quantum instance

Arthur wrote: ... But I still don't see the connection to XP programming, API design Do you truly not understand my position, or merely disagree with it? --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http

Re: [Edu-sig] Brute force solutions

in enumerate(farey_trials(partial(test_sqrt, 19, 1))): if n -n == n: # report increasingly rarely print n, fraction if n 4096: break -- Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Basic dictionary question

for candidates, unless your fixed point stuff reflects an underlying granularity. -- Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Basic dictionary question

: yield a, b -- -- Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] python versus __python__

(and all basic types). Also, you didn't tweak hash, so a dictionary with these things in them would not find entries that turn out to be equal. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org

Re: [Edu-sig] python versus __python__

Arthur wrote: Scott David Daniels wrote: ... Getting one's arms around all the practical implications of these issues related to mutable, immutable - understanding when one should want to retain object identity, and when one should want to break it, the full implications

Re: [Edu-sig] python versus __python__

Beni Cherniavsky wrote: On Mon, 2005-10-24 at 20:24 -0700, Scott David Daniels wrote: Of course, the proper way to compare object identity is not the __low_level__ `id()` function but the ``is`` operator: (math.pi + 1.0) is (29. / 7.) False int('99') is int('99') # small integer

Re: [Edu-sig] Python as Application

is not asking for free work -- only costed trade-offs are available to choose from. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Low Enrollments - programming as anti-intellectualism

. This path is a much more abstract approach to the problem. I remember in the introduction to the class (upon which this book was based), he claimed we call it Concrete Mathematics because it is hard. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig

[Edu-sig] Knuth's books.

go at the same rate as the rest of TAoCP. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] question about livewires package. . .

.html Hope this helps and is clear enough. Happy instructing. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

[Edu-sig] I've just started reading this paper

://portal.acm.org/tipsvc.cfm?id=1089734sess=%27%2BL%2F%2DP%5CK%2B30O%24%0A If anyone else wants to grab a copy and chat about it after reading, let me know. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org

Re: [Edu-sig] Python Programming: Procedural Online Test

of this work is: http://www-epgy.stanford.edu/ I worked there back in the day and was quite proud to be a part of some of that work. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo

Re: [Edu-sig] Python Programming: Procedural Online Test

, randomly pick a strand, and pick the best question for that student in that strand. Or, you could bias the choices between strands to give more balanced progress (increasing the probability of work where the student is weakest). --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED

Re: [Edu-sig] Python Programming: Procedural Online Test

damon bryant wrote: ... I have corrected the issue with the use of 'sum' (now ‘sum1’) and the I'd suggest total would be a better replacement than sum1. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http

Re: [Edu-sig] Lowering the Barriers to Programming

the primary aspect of programming that the system attempts to simplify seems equally troublesome, requiring a crystal ball -- I have no confidence in reading this paper that another person would cut the boundaries the same way. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED

Re: [Edu-sig] The study of fixed points has been at the foundation of algorithms

asking a question that is itself too round-about to have an answer of the kind of am looking for? ;) The above is as much as I can give you. You may get more from abstract algebra people. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list

Re: [Edu-sig] Textbooks

.ncsu.edu/~rwchabay/mi They teach both physics and enough programming to do 3-d programming on the way to teaching physics. You might be able to make a short course out of the how to program part of the books. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu

Re: [Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 31, Issue 16

\idlelib\idle.pyw -n Does this expedient not work for you? The -n means to use a single-process model (more fragile, but the interaction of two GUI loops is not there). --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org

Re: [Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 31, Issue 16

feel I got a much better idea of what, in general, programming was from learning wildly disparate languages. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] IDLE wish (was Edu-sig Digest, Vol 31, Issue 16)

interfacing with 3D (VPython) or actual robot turtles (PYRO) Obviously, these advance turtle environments would go through the Cheeseshop, not the standard distribution. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] wxPython and COM Query

as credit towards the purchase of the paper book directly from them (which will be at full retail price). --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] suggestions about turtle.py

Pen being how to control all of the dir() results. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] # $Id: myrtle.py 1.3 2006/03/04 22:54:25 daniels Exp daniels $ '''Myrtle the minimally complex turtle''' from math import sin, cos, tan, pi, atan2 import Tkinter __version__ = '0.3' __all__ = 'Turtle pi

Re: [Edu-sig] A Quick Puzzle

when I was born. It was such a wonderful surprise; a great conversation for both of us. -- Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Entering Squeakland

already absorbed the OO paradigm, and were reimplementing it in C (to give us C++, Java, C#) and in Python. But many shared Smalltalk things involve mucking with the core objects: This is my nifty whizz-bang: just add these methods to 'object' and then you'll find that -- Scott David

Re: [Edu-sig] Properties use case

size from one that is guaranteed to settle might be a disaster at the new-improved value. So, that's why CS people like immutable primitive types. -- Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org

Re: [Edu-sig] Properties use case

. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Properties use case

is that immutable values can be safely shared, a copy is never a meaningful operation on an immutable type. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Properties use case

mutable state on complexes (and then on points) -- the answer is when you are applying a uniform transformation to a bunch of points. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman

Re: [Edu-sig] Properties use case

Christian Mascher wrote: Scott David Daniels wrote: copying to a minimum. With immutables, you needn't do any of the bookkeeping. It is not that you have gone terribly wrong; it is that you have opened the lid on a large class of avoidable problems. If you look at Java's strings (as I

Re: [Edu-sig] The end is near :)

of the discussion a number of people slowly (or not so slowly) go away. That is what's to lose: conversation with others. -- Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] list newbie

to be able to prune the shell window contents. Especially if you have output some long text w/o returns in it, scrolling can get painfully slow as the output accumulates. -- Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Accessibility to non CS types?

, and had the most fun I've had in a new language in 30 years. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Talking about Handles

is a living thing with lasers shining on it (referring to it), that may shrivel up and die if it gets no light. -- Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Talking about Handles

). -- Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Edu-sig Digest, Vol 39, Issue 2

David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Truth values and comparisons

guess we are all allowed to define sound programming for ourselves. With the exception you pointed out about space shuttles. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu

Re: [Edu-sig] Learning (some more) programming

and Evolution of C++. It will give you a nice skeleton around which to wrap your understanding of C++, and help you understand how C++ came to be the way it is. --Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http

Re: [Edu-sig] CS0 course

having to invest too much time) Thanks for your time reading this message, and I welcome any suggestion you may have. Check in newsgroup fr.comp.lang.python. It is fairly active (nowhere near comp.lang.python), but I'm certain there are resources. -- -- Scott David Daniels [EMAIL PROTECTED

Re: [Edu-sig] Mystery Number 6174

kirby urner wrote: Yutaka Nishiyama has this interesting article in the March 2006 issue of Plus, entitled 'Mysterious number 6174'. The theorem in this article is as follows: any 4-digit positive integer, stipulating all 4 digits *not* be the same one, may be distilled to 6174 by the following

Re: [Edu-sig] What is the Best Way to use Python in the Windows Command Line

, but at the very least your students could download their installer themselves for the economical price of $0.00. --Scott David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Python 2.6.1 build problems

out of tricks! It is essential to have a Tcl/Tk development package installed before configuring Python. I don't know enough about what packages you need for Ubuntu, but check into it; that may be the problem (than make clean ./configure, ) --Scott David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org

Re: [Edu-sig] Many Laptops per Adult

carefully for legibility. The letters are larger now in absolute terms, and _much_ larger in pixels, so I suffer with web pages and applications that think they know what size text takes. One size fits all is short for one size fits all that fit. --Scott David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org

Re: [Edu-sig] Pythonic Math must include...

in check, check + 2: for factor in factors: if element % factor == 0: break else: yield element --Scott David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org ___ Edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] Topics for CS2

Scott David Daniels wrote: Scott David Daniels wrote: I wrote: In PythonOOP.doc (page 4) you say: There are two pieces of magic that make line 3 work. First, the interpreter has to find the method set_vars. It's not in cat2. Then, the instance cat2 has to be inserted as the first

Re: [Edu-sig] Attribute Lookup Order

# self.area = width * height @property def area(self): return self.width * self.height --Scott David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu

Re: [Edu-sig] As We May Think: What will we automate?

chunks. But Kirby and I program about different things. --Scott David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] As We May Think: What will we automate?

talking about the mechanics than about the idea. I suspect this is why Kirby likes APL so much, he can easily express large-swath ideas. For me, APL too quickly becomes terse little chunks. But Kirby and I program about different things. --Scott David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org Yeah, plus

Re: [Edu-sig] As We May Think: What will we automate?

, or follow and extend it to enable unanticipated requirements. Programs are (or should be) communications about the solution to particular problems, not to the computer, but to future humans reading the program. --Scott David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org

Re: [Edu-sig] Progamming advice. (Was: Why MIT switched from Scheme to Python)

last week with this little change was going to cost them a full redevelop. These days I see this as matching the Agile Programming goal of leaving the customer in charge, but then I just thought it was a miraculous way of explaining explaining what the extra time went for. --Scott David Daniels

Re: [Edu-sig] What version of Python to teach ....

if they really worked. Students need to know that not everything has been done. --Scott David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] F.Y.I.: this month's cover story for CACM is OLPC: Vision vs. Reality (cross posted)

and Programming in Python, a Multimedia Approach, Prentice Hall, 2005. This change was so successful that, second courses for both engineering and media are now in place (the demand was high), and they've introduced a CS minor. --Scott David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org

Re: [Edu-sig] poking around in Py3k (recycling old algebra)

): return args Funny[1, ..., 10] (1, Ellipsis, 3) Ellipsis Ellipsis --Scott David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] poking around in Py3k (recycling old algebra)

Scott David Daniels wrote: kirby urner wrote: ... Hey, did you know Ellipsis is a new primitive object ... Actually, it has been around for quite a while [broken example] Sorry, everybody, I started writing, tried the code, and editted the reply, rather than taking direct quotes

Re: [Edu-sig] mentions of Py on Math Forum....

release (think if 3.0 as a Python 3000 alpha or beta). --Scott David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig

Re: [Edu-sig] more on digital math...

David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig