Don't teach them a language at all. Teach via example and experience. Toss them a program in, say, Python that does something simple. Like, loops and prints 99 bottles of beer on the wall or something. Go over it quickly in class using a projector. Show them how this chunk does this, that chunk does that, etc. side-by-side with the output. Then, give them a program in C that does the same thing and go through the same procedure explaining in general terms how this does that, etc. Better yet would be to have both samples up on the screen with different projectors at the same time so students can be comparing in their heads and see the complete playing field the whole time.
Then tell them to build a specific comparable program (something that loops and prints, but with a different twist someplace) and tell them to write it in both C and Python. Don't give them any starting code - just leave the sample code visible on the projectors and they can look up and refer back to that on their own. See what happens.
Actually, I'd be terribly interested to know if anyone has experienced this or tried it with their own students as, to me, it seems like a terribly cool way to teach how to think programming and not just how to do it. Kids that age aren't stupid - they've seen some algebra, they know what variables are (more or less), as well as functions. Just toss them in and let them map what they know or are learning in other classes onto this new medium.
Oh, and always remember you can't make a student care no matter how hard you try. Don't try to simplify or dumb it down just so every single student manages to complete the coursework. Let the ones who don't care suffer for it, dammit.:-) (And the rockstars can be given special side projects once they are identified - perhaps such as writing a portable game, using GUI code, 3D, etc.)
So a guy trying to sell a book about Linux on the desktop says that it's nearly there? I'm so shocked!
What's even more crazy is that he discovered all this while doing the research for his book. So I guess he decided to write the book first and then find out if Desktop Linux could actually work later. Curious.
Cross platform Javascript/CSS is possible - just not terribly easy. I made a game of life in Javascript/CSS that works in all the major browsers with no browser checking code.
"A March study by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that black youths between 8 and 18 years old played video and computer games roughly 90 minutes a day -- almost 30 minutes more than white youths. And Hispanics play about 10 minutes more per day than whites."
So, basically, black and hispanic kids play games more than white kids do, but we need to recruit more minorities into the industry to fix the problem with the games being too stereotyped? Now, I have nothing against anyone who can do the job (regardless where they come from or what they look like), but obviously the blacks and hispanics they speak of are enjoying themselves playing all these games that the people in the current industry have created. It seems if there was some fundamental problem with racial equality here, they'd have a far smaller market and be playing games less - not more. I could be missing something...
He died doing what he loved. Heck, he even quit his job to play more games! The dude loved his games...
I am reminded of that South Park episode where Kenny is summoned by God to control heaven's army because he's so good at that one video game and never stopped playing it...
You're comparing two numbers that can't be directly compared. That's around $11B for the entire industry. Each company is/will spend millions on anti-theft devices individually. That would also probably total in the billions of dollars across the industry.
You can fight with technology, but this is really a social problem. Technology can never totally solve such a thing. At some point you have to just give up and admit that a certain percentage of people are out there having fun cheating the system and there's not a damned thing you can do about it except plan ahead for it.
I wonder which is cheaper... to invest millions in anti-theft technologies, advanced databases, embedded serial numbers, RFID, etc., or just take the tiny loss each quarter due to cheaters and have a Walmart-style greeter hand out anti-theft flyers with attached coupons at the door or something.
Well, I imagine you could be, say, bracing yourself with your arms and legs to hold your body in position. And then, while reaching for the tethered soap, one of your hands slips off the bar and the force of your other limbs holding you in place relied on a firm grip of said hand. This new imbalance propels your body such that your head pops out of the shower compartment door thus scaring the living jeepers out of one of your crew mates who flinches and ends up kicking the door's hatch good and hard - thus cracking your skull.
The sad thing is that I had thought of it but I edited something and then hit submit without putting it in there. Ah well. Clearly, of all threats, that one is one of the greatest.
"Employers might not see any up-side to after-hours "fraternization" and there are some clearly-visible down-sides (for the employer)."
If this is true and an employer might not see any benefit to allowing employees to be friends outside of work, then clearly they have their heads rather far up some small, dark, stinky part of their anatomy. People who like each other and get along well enough to want to get together outside of work are going to be far better workers and much more interested in doing a good job while on the job.
First: Sending a ship of humans to Mars hasn't been done before. This is far, far more complex than getting to the moon.
Who knows what might power the ship? It could explode and there might be a much higher risk of that on the first manned Mars missions.
Food is trickier since it is quite a lot farther. If they touch down on Mars to stay awhile, what happens if they can't take off again for some reason? Screwed.
There's more rocks between Earth and Mars than Earth and the moon. Hence a greater risk.
As you say, we haven't detected any aliens - doesn't mean they aren't there waiting with a death ray to keep the scourge of humanity trapped on its little blue ball...
It may not happen often, but do you have statistics for slipping in a zero-G shower while flying to Mars? Yeah, didn't think so...
A 10% risk is nothing to the kinds of people who are cut out for even going in the first place. It's only a significant problem for the pussies who complain about how expensive it is, pointless it is, or would otherwise not go and want to ruin it for everyone else who does. When people first crawled out of their caves and started building wooden huts and such, I'm sure they didn't sit around running the numbers as to the risks to them when tornados came through the area - they did it for other reasons than to be safe.
Space is dangerous?!? Wha??!!! Wow.. We better not go there then! RUN AWAY! Someone might die! *gasp* *shock* Horror!!!!!!1111one!
I think any first travelers to Mars would have far more impressive ways to die than a 10% chance of radiation damage. The ship could explode, they could run out of food, they could hit any of the various bits of rock out there, they could get abducted by the aliens that live on the other side of the moon, they could slip and fall while getting out the shower cracking their skulls open, etc.
"about how PS2 will be backwards compatible with PS2"
Boy, I hope they are compatible! I'd hate to buy a PS2 and find myself with a suddenly obsolete PS2 when the PS2 comes out a week later or something. That'd suck.
Good arguments. I have a counter to offer you: Consider how many people continue to use Windows even when there are obviously better alternatives. Would you expect a massive retooling away from Microsoft tech overnight? By comparison, most (all?) people have far, far less invested emotionally and financially in Windows than NASA does in the shuttle.
Ok, cheap shot maybe, but I think the same basic logic applies here and there are strong parallels - especially when it comes to those critical components you mentioned (DLL hell, security holes, etc. in Windows vs. fragile materials, complex design, etc. of the shuttle.).
It isn't about coordination. It is about understanding. Computers don't follow the usual mechanics that older people are used to. A manual transmission vehicle has real parts that make concrete sense without needing to understand the actual principals involved. You could think about the gears and the reasons why in concrete terms after only a few minutes of explanation and simply "feel" your way to proper usage. Shifting to 2nd always produces the same results regardless if you are driving on pavement or gravel.
Computers are not so simple when approached in this way. Clicking in the upper left corner of the screen does totally different things depending upon what little graphic blib happens to be there at the time. Most people rely on intuition in the absence of knowledge and they did not grow up thinking about virtually any of the abstract concepts that computers are based on.
It isn't just computers. Telephones are equally mysterious to some older people - it is just that the interface is so easy to use, it makes it easy to forget about how it actually works because you don't need to know. On the other hand, my grandma always thought that the paper actually went through the phone lines with a fax machine. She's not an idiot, she just hadn't been exposed to the kind of thinking required to "get" a fax machine. She grew up on a farm before the days of indoor plumbing. There is no analog to a fax machine in her life history. In fact, I don't think she's ever even touched a mouse - not the plastic kind, anyway. The computer is so foreign to her that I'm not sure she'd even know where to begin if she tried. Video screens, to her, are one-way communication devices (aka TV). A keyboard should have heft and make loud banging sounds as little hammers hit paper. A mouse looks like a paperweight. Everything about computers is so far outside her world it's spooky.
My mom, on the other hand, was only introduced to computers when I became interested in them. She didn't have them in school and the early computers didn't even have mice anyway. She has some trouble with the mouse and the right button gives her the willies at times, but she gets it well enough to do her emailing. She doesn't know how any of it works, though, so while she uses the computer she's always on edge. Frankly I'm surprised she bothers with it at all, but I guess email is compelling enough to force her to face that fear of the unknown. She's not stupid just because the mouse and computers in general are still a bit scary to her, she just isn't used to that kind of thinking having never had to do it before. She grew up on a farm and, until recently, every job she ever had had no need for computers. She went maybe 40-45 years of her life basically never touching them and suddenly you expect her to understand the intricacies of the mouse overnight? Sure she's been using computers for a few years now, and she's still a little skittish, but that's life.
People, until maybe my generation, did not expect to learn their whole lives. They would learn tons of stuff while younger and then, in their 20s, they mostly just set into a life pattern and proceeded from there not needing to learn tons of new technology or ways of thinking each day. 20 years of that can certainly set a person firmly within certain patterns. It's tough to break that sort of thing.
You could always maintain 2 source trees. A secret one with comments so you can get your job done, and another auto-gened one which runs through some tools to strip all the comments. That's the code you show everyone and check into the source repository.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
They mention more detail about the planned game here including a rough description of the intended physics.
Don't teach them a language at all. Teach via example and experience. Toss them a program in, say, Python that does something simple. Like, loops and prints 99 bottles of beer on the wall or something. Go over it quickly in class using a projector. Show them how this chunk does this, that chunk does that, etc. side-by-side with the output. Then, give them a program in C that does the same thing and go through the same procedure explaining in general terms how this does that, etc. Better yet would be to have both samples up on the screen with different projectors at the same time so students can be comparing in their heads and see the complete playing field the whole time.
:-) (And the rockstars can be given special side projects once they are identified - perhaps such as writing a portable game, using GUI code, 3D, etc.)
Then tell them to build a specific comparable program (something that loops and prints, but with a different twist someplace) and tell them to write it in both C and Python. Don't give them any starting code - just leave the sample code visible on the projectors and they can look up and refer back to that on their own. See what happens.
Actually, I'd be terribly interested to know if anyone has experienced this or tried it with their own students as, to me, it seems like a terribly cool way to teach how to think programming and not just how to do it. Kids that age aren't stupid - they've seen some algebra, they know what variables are (more or less), as well as functions. Just toss them in and let them map what they know or are learning in other classes onto this new medium.
Oh, and always remember you can't make a student care no matter how hard you try. Don't try to simplify or dumb it down just so every single student manages to complete the coursework. Let the ones who don't care suffer for it, dammit.
So a guy trying to sell a book about Linux on the desktop says that it's nearly there? I'm so shocked!
What's even more crazy is that he discovered all this while doing the research for his book. So I guess he decided to write the book first and then find out if Desktop Linux could actually work later. Curious.
Putting salt on my monitor didn't make the terrible shock I got while trying to ingest this any better. Did I do something wrong?
Cross platform Javascript/CSS is possible - just not terribly easy. I made a game of life in Javascript/CSS that works in all the major browsers with no browser checking code.
And of course taxi-oriented programming. :-)
"A March study by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that black youths between 8 and 18 years old played video and computer games roughly 90 minutes a day -- almost 30 minutes more than white youths. And Hispanics play about 10 minutes more per day than whites."
So, basically, black and hispanic kids play games more than white kids do, but we need to recruit more minorities into the industry to fix the problem with the games being too stereotyped? Now, I have nothing against anyone who can do the job (regardless where they come from or what they look like), but obviously the blacks and hispanics they speak of are enjoying themselves playing all these games that the people in the current industry have created. It seems if there was some fundamental problem with racial equality here, they'd have a far smaller market and be playing games less - not more. I could be missing something...
To me, that sounds like their problem. It is sad that they cannot see past their prejudices. This isn't the game industry's problem, though.
He died doing what he loved. Heck, he even quit his job to play more games! The dude loved his games...
I am reminded of that South Park episode where Kenny is summoned by God to control heaven's army because he's so good at that one video game and never stopped playing it...
You're comparing two numbers that can't be directly compared. That's around $11B for the entire industry. Each company is/will spend millions on anti-theft devices individually. That would also probably total in the billions of dollars across the industry.
You can fight with technology, but this is really a social problem. Technology can never totally solve such a thing. At some point you have to just give up and admit that a certain percentage of people are out there having fun cheating the system and there's not a damned thing you can do about it except plan ahead for it.
I wonder which is cheaper... to invest millions in anti-theft technologies, advanced databases, embedded serial numbers, RFID, etc., or just take the tiny loss each quarter due to cheaters and have a Walmart-style greeter hand out anti-theft flyers with attached coupons at the door or something.
My guess is you aren't from Korea. I could be wrong, though...
Well, I imagine you could be, say, bracing yourself with your arms and legs to hold your body in position. And then, while reaching for the tethered soap, one of your hands slips off the bar and the force of your other limbs holding you in place relied on a firm grip of said hand. This new imbalance propels your body such that your head pops out of the shower compartment door thus scaring the living jeepers out of one of your crew mates who flinches and ends up kicking the door's hatch good and hard - thus cracking your skull.
See? It could happen...
The world of comedy is all about presentation and timing...
:-)
Actually, I have no idea what I'm talking about, I guess I just got lucky with the mods.
The sad thing is that I had thought of it but I edited something and then hit submit without putting it in there. Ah well. Clearly, of all threats, that one is one of the greatest.
"Employers might not see any up-side to after-hours "fraternization" and there are some clearly-visible down-sides (for the employer)."
If this is true and an employer might not see any benefit to allowing employees to be friends outside of work, then clearly they have their heads rather far up some small, dark, stinky part of their anatomy. People who like each other and get along well enough to want to get together outside of work are going to be far better workers and much more interested in doing a good job while on the job.
What, are they running out of their favorite food over there? *ba-dum-bump*
First: Sending a ship of humans to Mars hasn't been done before. This is far, far more complex than getting to the moon.
Who knows what might power the ship? It could explode and there might be a much higher risk of that on the first manned Mars missions.
Food is trickier since it is quite a lot farther. If they touch down on Mars to stay awhile, what happens if they can't take off again for some reason? Screwed.
There's more rocks between Earth and Mars than Earth and the moon. Hence a greater risk.
As you say, we haven't detected any aliens - doesn't mean they aren't there waiting with a death ray to keep the scourge of humanity trapped on its little blue ball...
It may not happen often, but do you have statistics for slipping in a zero-G shower while flying to Mars? Yeah, didn't think so...
A 10% risk is nothing to the kinds of people who are cut out for even going in the first place. It's only a significant problem for the pussies who complain about how expensive it is, pointless it is, or would otherwise not go and want to ruin it for everyone else who does. When people first crawled out of their caves and started building wooden huts and such, I'm sure they didn't sit around running the numbers as to the risks to them when tornados came through the area - they did it for other reasons than to be safe.
That assumes they even make it to Mars in the first place... :-)
Space is dangerous?!? Wha??!!! Wow.. We better not go there then! RUN AWAY! Someone might die! *gasp* *shock* Horror!!!!!!1111one!
I think any first travelers to Mars would have far more impressive ways to die than a 10% chance of radiation damage. The ship could explode, they could run out of food, they could hit any of the various bits of rock out there, they could get abducted by the aliens that live on the other side of the moon, they could slip and fall while getting out the shower cracking their skulls open, etc.
"about how PS2 will be backwards compatible with PS2"
Boy, I hope they are compatible! I'd hate to buy a PS2 and find myself with a suddenly obsolete PS2 when the PS2 comes out a week later or something. That'd suck.
Good arguments. I have a counter to offer you: Consider how many people continue to use Windows even when there are obviously better alternatives. Would you expect a massive retooling away from Microsoft tech overnight? By comparison, most (all?) people have far, far less invested emotionally and financially in Windows than NASA does in the shuttle.
Ok, cheap shot maybe, but I think the same basic logic applies here and there are strong parallels - especially when it comes to those critical components you mentioned (DLL hell, security holes, etc. in Windows vs. fragile materials, complex design, etc. of the shuttle.).
It isn't about coordination. It is about understanding. Computers don't follow the usual mechanics that older people are used to. A manual transmission vehicle has real parts that make concrete sense without needing to understand the actual principals involved. You could think about the gears and the reasons why in concrete terms after only a few minutes of explanation and simply "feel" your way to proper usage. Shifting to 2nd always produces the same results regardless if you are driving on pavement or gravel.
Computers are not so simple when approached in this way. Clicking in the upper left corner of the screen does totally different things depending upon what little graphic blib happens to be there at the time. Most people rely on intuition in the absence of knowledge and they did not grow up thinking about virtually any of the abstract concepts that computers are based on.
It isn't just computers. Telephones are equally mysterious to some older people - it is just that the interface is so easy to use, it makes it easy to forget about how it actually works because you don't need to know. On the other hand, my grandma always thought that the paper actually went through the phone lines with a fax machine. She's not an idiot, she just hadn't been exposed to the kind of thinking required to "get" a fax machine. She grew up on a farm before the days of indoor plumbing. There is no analog to a fax machine in her life history. In fact, I don't think she's ever even touched a mouse - not the plastic kind, anyway. The computer is so foreign to her that I'm not sure she'd even know where to begin if she tried. Video screens, to her, are one-way communication devices (aka TV). A keyboard should have heft and make loud banging sounds as little hammers hit paper. A mouse looks like a paperweight. Everything about computers is so far outside her world it's spooky.
My mom, on the other hand, was only introduced to computers when I became interested in them. She didn't have them in school and the early computers didn't even have mice anyway. She has some trouble with the mouse and the right button gives her the willies at times, but she gets it well enough to do her emailing. She doesn't know how any of it works, though, so while she uses the computer she's always on edge. Frankly I'm surprised she bothers with it at all, but I guess email is compelling enough to force her to face that fear of the unknown. She's not stupid just because the mouse and computers in general are still a bit scary to her, she just isn't used to that kind of thinking having never had to do it before. She grew up on a farm and, until recently, every job she ever had had no need for computers. She went maybe 40-45 years of her life basically never touching them and suddenly you expect her to understand the intricacies of the mouse overnight? Sure she's been using computers for a few years now, and she's still a little skittish, but that's life.
People, until maybe my generation, did not expect to learn their whole lives. They would learn tons of stuff while younger and then, in their 20s, they mostly just set into a life pattern and proceeded from there not needing to learn tons of new technology or ways of thinking each day. 20 years of that can certainly set a person firmly within certain patterns. It's tough to break that sort of thing.
I named my current bluetooth mouse Mighty Mouse. :-)
You could always maintain 2 source trees. A secret one with comments so you can get your job done, and another auto-gened one which runs through some tools to strip all the comments. That's the code you show everyone and check into the source repository. :-)