It seems like that's not the point. The goal of having students write games isn't to turn them into game programmers, but to show them that programming can be fun, and then they can use their new skills to solve all sorts of problems.
I agree. For a couple of years, I have used The Battle for Wesnoth as a practical example of open-source development. Its markup language falls somewhere between HTML and real programming and thus has been working very well for students with non-technical background who typically run very far when programming is mentioned. The students form teams and create a mini-campaign, using version management, wikis and other typical tools (I've used Trac for that).
Also, it is similar in web development in the sense that it promotes/needs three separate skillsets - visual (the result should be aesthetically pleasing), technical (the result should work and follow standards) and verbal/creative (the result should tell something and do it in a correct manner). Thus, it can be used to teach various skills, stressing one or the other as needed.
For laptop, I can recommend my recent purchase: Dell XPS M1330 (it's Intel though). I've read some opinions in the line of "as close to Mac as a PC can be" - small, light, slot-loading DVD...
It does have some minor nuisances in design though. The VGA projector port does not have screw holes (I use projectors a lot for lectures, must be careful not to detach it). HDD light and earphone sockets are in the front edge (holding it in your lap is not that comfortable with phones connected...) and the WiFi switch can be toggled by accident.
Other than that, I am happy. Enough power, reasonable price, good construction, stylish look. And it runs Ubuntu without problems. So I recommend that even with those glitches.
While I do agree with all your points, I'd like to stress one: the community. Ubuntu has really managed to get people going - UbuntuGuide, UbuntuForums, Full Circle Magazine etc. So I'd say the Ubuntu phenomenon is in skilled management plus great community.
Estonian servers have been under constant barrage of DDOS attempts since April 26, much of which have been tracked to Russian servers. Now Russians try to obfuscate their whois. Is it just me, or are those two events linked...?
AFAIK, the original CatB is not so much about open vs closed source, rather than those two models used in open source context - e.g. the original GNU project was more a Cathedral, while Linux was a Bazaar.
I'd say (like many others before) that death is quite far away. But it is changing - as it in fact has always done. IMHO, the following trends are notable:
CS => New Media (to use the buzzwords). More network-centered, perhaps more stress on 'softcore' IT
the increasing ubiquity of IT, move towards 'networked society' (yes, I'm an optimist...)
increasing role of F/OSS and subsequent rise of hybrid business models
One could also speculate the increasing confusion in the current hardline IP system and its possible collapse in near future which would have profound impact on computer science too. And in case of prevailing free/open-souce model (I am quite sure that the proprietary model won't disappear completely, but becoming a niche method is likely) the result will probably be quite opposite to what is suggested by the article.
To answer the question - peaceful. Vista (as every other creation of Microsoft) is as necessary for me as a bicycle for a fish. It has been Linux for me everywhere since 2000. For papers, for preparing my courses, for teaching. And for fun too.
Still it is interesting to stand by and see all the mess surrounding its release. Maybe it is wishful thinking, but especially mainstream sources (tech columns in common papers etc) look as if they (at least some of them) have finally learned to take everything coming from MS marketers with a grain of salt. Granted, there is plenty of hype too, but maybe some people have learned something by now.
Well, I am a bit confused that they did not enlist any Finnish cities. Considering our starting position back in 1991 (old Soviet telephone system with huge queues to get a phone to one's home, no cell phones, quite limited access to computers) we have done quite well. But we still tend to look up to our Northern neighbours when it comes to hi-tech, after all they have got Nokia and Linus Torvalds ("finding Estonian Nokia" has even become a saying here for trying to find or invent something qualitatively new and useful).
But I happen to be an academic type, so I will share a related experience. Last term I taught a course titled Security and Privacy Issues of New Media to our Master students. As an assignment, I asked them to take their palmtops or laptop, take a warwalk in the centre of Tallinn and map wireless access points (and to determine if they were open or not - as it was a security-related course). They then had to blog the results, one of the entries is here. While the security situation is nothing to boast with (as it is probably elsewhere too), it shows the number of hotspots. You can also see WiFi.ee.
P.S. Pedrito - Estonian and Finnish are similar indeed but not so close that they automatically understand each other. A number of well-known blunders await the careless speaker.:)
There's something weird in the fridge today I don't know what it is Food I can't recognize My roommate won't throw a thing away I guess it's probably his It looks like it's alive...
And livin' in the fridge... livin' in the fridge Livin' in the fridge... livin' in the fridge
I completely agree with the parent. I am that old too - but it took some time. Actually I remained a cluelessly happy MS user until having to compile and teach a course on various IT issues including its history (was back in 2000). Digging into the books and websites for course materials, I unearthed so much stinky stuff about a certain corporation and their typical practices that it made me sick. Thankfully, in those days Stardivision released their StarOffice 5.1 and 5.2 which along with Mandrake (6.1?) gave me a mostly working platform for academic office needs. Since then it has been Linux for me.
But the real problem is IMHO still the champignon syndrome (kept in dark, fed on shit) of normal, ordinary people (not to say this is unique to IT - happens elsewhere too). As long as the typical Joe/Jane Sixpack does not care, things like this will go on. This is universal - people who are well-educated and smart otherwise are equally clueless in this matter (e.g. it has been a big news for many of them that you should not use your XP without password and in admin mode).
I agree. The problem is not so much with the basic concepts than with the application.
Remember Winnie the Pooh? In the books, there is a weird bunch of diverse creatures called Rabbit's friends and relatives. No one exactly knows how many there are (except that there are MANY) and what is the whole point of having them around.
The IP system as it is now is plagued with the same Rabbit's friends and relatives typically passing as lawyers, producers, Second Assistants of the Marketing Director etc. If there was a way to cut down on these and reserve the benefits to the authors only (and not their third generation descendants as it is with the U.S. Copyright now), it would help to keep the system from becoming its own caricature as it is now.
Or we can go on with the current system and find one day that no one takes it seriously any more.
Contrary to many people, my upgrade from Dapper to Edgy was outright boring.
The only thing that caused a brief stop was the XFCE bug (I have several environments installed besides the default Gnome, mostly for demonstration to the uninitiated), could not install the xfonts-intl-european package - the bug was also described in the Xubuntu release notes I think. Altering between apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade a couple of times seemed to solve it.
Otherwise, everything was painless. Compiz works, the fingerprint reader works, sound and both network interfaces work. A previous upgrade messed up my Estonian keyboard settings - not this one. And the Dapper install had lots of extras added to the default set of software, so this was far from a minimal install.
Just to report that not everybody ran into problems when upgrading.
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It seems like that's not the point. The goal of having students write games isn't to turn them into game programmers, but to show them that programming can be fun, and then they can use their new skills to solve all sorts of problems.
I agree. For a couple of years, I have used The Battle for Wesnoth as a practical example of open-source development. Its markup language falls somewhere between HTML and real programming and thus has been working very well for students with non-technical background who typically run very far when programming is mentioned. The students form teams and create a mini-campaign, using version management, wikis and other typical tools (I've used Trac for that).
Also, it is similar in web development in the sense that it promotes/needs three separate skillsets - visual (the result should be aesthetically pleasing), technical (the result should work and follow standards) and verbal/creative (the result should tell something and do it in a correct manner). Thus, it can be used to teach various skills, stressing one or the other as needed.
For laptop, I can recommend my recent purchase: Dell XPS M1330 (it's Intel though). I've read some opinions in the line of "as close to Mac as a PC can be" - small, light, slot-loading DVD...
It does have some minor nuisances in design though. The VGA projector port does not have screw holes (I use projectors a lot for lectures, must be careful not to detach it). HDD light and earphone sockets are in the front edge (holding it in your lap is not that comfortable with phones connected...) and the WiFi switch can be toggled by accident.
Other than that, I am happy. Enough power, reasonable price, good construction, stylish look. And it runs Ubuntu without problems. So I recommend that even with those glitches.
While I do agree with all your points, I'd like to stress one: the community. Ubuntu has really managed to get people going - UbuntuGuide, UbuntuForums, Full Circle Magazine etc. So I'd say the Ubuntu phenomenon is in skilled management plus great community.
To continue your nice metaphor: the small dog barks after seeing the huge load of elephant dung dropped to his backyard.
Russia's past might be glorious. Pity that the present is not.
Estonian servers have been under constant barrage of DDOS attempts since April 26, much of which have been tracked to Russian servers. Now Russians try to obfuscate their whois. Is it just me, or are those two events linked...?
AFAIK, the original CatB is not so much about open vs closed source, rather than those two models used in open source context - e.g. the original GNU project was more a Cathedral, while Linux was a Bazaar.
I'd say (like many others before) that death is quite far away. But it is changing - as it in fact has always done. IMHO, the following trends are notable:
One could also speculate the increasing confusion in the current hardline IP system and its possible collapse in near future which would have profound impact on computer science too. And in case of prevailing free/open-souce model (I am quite sure that the proprietary model won't disappear completely, but becoming a niche method is likely) the result will probably be quite opposite to what is suggested by the article.
To answer the question - peaceful. Vista (as every other creation of Microsoft) is as necessary for me as a bicycle for a fish. It has been Linux for me everywhere since 2000. For papers, for preparing my courses, for teaching. And for fun too.
:)
Still it is interesting to stand by and see all the mess surrounding its release. Maybe it is wishful thinking, but especially mainstream sources (tech columns in common papers etc) look as if they (at least some of them) have finally learned to take everything coming from MS marketers with a grain of salt. Granted, there is plenty of hype too, but maybe some people have learned something by now.
So I'm moderately optimistic.
A couple of words from the (Estonian) trenches...
Well, I am a bit confused that they did not enlist any Finnish cities. Considering our starting position back in 1991 (old Soviet telephone system with huge queues to get a phone to one's home, no cell phones, quite limited access to computers) we have done quite well. But we still tend to look up to our Northern neighbours when it comes to hi-tech, after all they have got Nokia and Linus Torvalds ("finding Estonian Nokia" has even become a saying here for trying to find or invent something qualitatively new and useful).
But I happen to be an academic type, so I will share a related experience. Last term I taught a course titled Security and Privacy Issues of New Media to our Master students. As an assignment, I asked them to take their palmtops or laptop, take a warwalk in the centre of Tallinn and map wireless access points (and to determine if they were open or not - as it was a security-related course). They then had to blog the results, one of the entries is here. While the security situation is nothing to boast with (as it is probably elsewhere too), it shows the number of hotspots. You can also see WiFi.ee.
P.S. Pedrito - Estonian and Finnish are similar indeed but not so close that they automatically understand each other. A number of well-known blunders await the careless speaker. :)
There's something weird in the fridge today
I don't know what it is
Food I can't recognize
My roommate won't throw a thing away
I guess it's probably his
It looks like it's alive...
And livin' in the fridge... livin' in the fridge
Livin' in the fridge... livin' in the fridge
--- Livin' In The Fridge, by Weird Al Yankovic
(sorry, couldn't resist...)
I completely agree with the parent. I am that old too - but it took some time. Actually I remained a cluelessly happy MS user until having to compile and teach a course on various IT issues including its history (was back in 2000). Digging into the books and websites for course materials, I unearthed so much stinky stuff about a certain corporation and their typical practices that it made me sick. Thankfully, in those days Stardivision released their StarOffice 5.1 and 5.2 which along with Mandrake (6.1?) gave me a mostly working platform for academic office needs. Since then it has been Linux for me.
But the real problem is IMHO still the champignon syndrome (kept in dark, fed on shit) of normal, ordinary people (not to say this is unique to IT - happens elsewhere too). As long as the typical Joe/Jane Sixpack does not care, things like this will go on. This is universal - people who are well-educated and smart otherwise are equally clueless in this matter (e.g. it has been a big news for many of them that you should not use your XP without password and in admin mode).
Quoting a popular movie: blue or red pill?
I agree. The problem is not so much with the basic concepts than with the application.
Remember Winnie the Pooh? In the books, there is a weird bunch of diverse creatures called Rabbit's friends and relatives. No one exactly knows how many there are (except that there are MANY) and what is the whole point of having them around.
The IP system as it is now is plagued with the same Rabbit's friends and relatives typically passing as lawyers, producers, Second Assistants of the Marketing Director etc. If there was a way to cut down on these and reserve the benefits to the authors only (and not their third generation descendants as it is with the U.S. Copyright now), it would help to keep the system from becoming its own caricature as it is now.
Or we can go on with the current system and find one day that no one takes it seriously any more.
Just my two cents worth of opinion...
Contrary to many people, my upgrade from Dapper to Edgy was outright boring.
The only thing that caused a brief stop was the XFCE bug (I have several environments installed besides the default Gnome, mostly for demonstration to the uninitiated), could not install the xfonts-intl-european package - the bug was also described in the Xubuntu release notes I think. Altering between apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade a couple of times seemed to solve it.
Otherwise, everything was painless. Compiz works, the fingerprint reader works, sound and both network interfaces work. A previous upgrade messed up my Estonian keyboard settings - not this one. And the Dapper install had lots of extras added to the default set of software, so this was far from a minimal install.
Just to report that not everybody ran into problems when upgrading.