[Note: This is entirely fictional. Lion Kimbro is an OpenSource user, advocate, teacher, and programmer.]
For just pennies a day, the cost of a cup of coffee, you can save one of thousands of OpenSource developers like these:
Camera pans down and to the left to the image of a shrunken, pale, programmer, intraveneously importing deep brown coffee into his system, working with gdb on debugging a file system.
For just Pennies a day, you can make all the difference for a programmer who has no life, no future. When you pledge your pennies, you will receive, with every quarterly report, a low quality JPEG of your programmer, and also a plaintext email from your programmer, telling you about his dreams for his software.
(Camera pans up and to the right, focusing on an image of Linus Torvalds, with a silly grin, reaching out to punch a final semicolon on his keyboard.)
Just look at what previous contributions have done for these people; As your developer grows and grows, day by day, you will feel such pride at his accomplishments.
Please, go to your PayPal account, send a $15 contribution for this month to "lion@speakeasy.org" and have the satisfaction that for the pittance of a cup of coffee a day, you've made the world a better place.
Indeed, and is it not written in the Book of Corporate Wisdom, (Tao of Programming 7.2), written by the venerable Yong Yo Sef and translated by Geoffrey James:
In the east there is a shark which is larger than all other fish. It changes into a bird whose wings are like clouds filling the sky. When this bird moves across the land, it brings a message from corporate headquarters. This message it drops into the midst of the programmers, like a seagull making its mark upon the beach. Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with the blue sky at its back, returns home.
The novice programmer stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands it not. The average programmer dreads the coming of the bird, for he fears its message. The master programmer continues to work at his terminal, for he does not know that the bird has come and gone.
I think that people respect us - and that, to me, is one of the most valuable things someone can give you. I don't think that people really respect the entertainment industry. For the most part, its because they have a tendency to not respect thier audience. They continually betray the faith of the public every single day in so many ways it's abhorrent to me. I watched a thing the other day on how the top 5 media companies in the US literally milk the young population for everything they can. Young people trust them, and when all is said and done, all young people get is a little older and huge credit card debts. And some people wonder why young people are so cynical and full of rage. If your emotions were in the hands of people who were only interested in making as much money off of you as possible, wouldnt you feel pissy too?
Basically, I like quality. A friend of mine told me about MegaTokyo. I didn't look at their web site, despite glowing reviews. Then another friend recommended it. Then another. I decided, "Hm, I think I'll look at this." Hey! Guess what? It's one of the best web comics I've ever read, right up there with electric sheep and Scott McCloud's stuff.
Speaking of McCloud- I've paid for his content. I bought it off line, but if it were online, I'd pay for it there too. Whoah! Wait! I have paid for it online! There you go.
The Internet is a total success for content. Just a bunch of people are saying, "There went my revenue", and proclaiming it as a disaster.
Whatever. I'm going to go back to the MegaTokyo forums now...
I attach my passwords to my monitor, and have no problem with it. I feel safer, since I now have hoards of passwords, a different one for each web site.
The obvious retort is, "But anyone can read it!"
Is that so? If anyone can read it, and presumably you are somebody, just tell me what my passwords are... C'mon, it's easy: They're right on my monitor. Go on then.
Are you sure PayPal is credit card based? While I know that Amazon whacks off an incredible 15% from donations (!) and rides the CC system, if I recall correctly, Paypal is under 5%, and does NOT ride the credit card system.
Re:Earth travels around the sun - frame of referen
on
Star In A Jar
·
· Score: 2
Actually, I don't think you can appeal to frames of reference here;
If I recall correctly, rotation is absolute. It has something to do with constant acceleration (change in velocity)...
If a person in outer space is in a closed box that is moving with linear motion, they will have no way of knowing whether they are moving or not. If they could see the universe outside, they could say, "The universe is going past me." But if the person in outer space is in a box that is spinning, they will know that the box is spinning, and they will not be able to [correctly] say, "The universe is spinning around me."
Someone who is good at Physics, please append a note to this.
I'm of the opinion that a student should come out of a CS curriculum knowing at the very least, 6 languages. An example set: a shell language, a little LISP, a little prolog, C, C++, and Python. 10 would be preferable. (Add a couple assembly languages, a little Java, SML-NJ). They don't have to master them; they just need enough to use them and understand what they can do.
Mastery of a language only comes through years of industry use. Mastery is only necessary for, say, 5% of programming tasks, and comes from self-teaching. I do not know any programmers who gained mastery of a language as part of a class. Mastery is self-taught, and mostly learned in industry.
I recommend Python as a primary language.
Now, on to mainstream. One, Python is becoming mainstream. But Two, you can teach someone a mainstream programming language quicker if you first introduce them to Python. In Python, they work out their mistakes with variables, flow control, and functions very quickly. THEN, you can go to C, and they already understand how they work. It's just a matter of syntax, and you're all ready to go with bits and bytes. Even greater savings if you are going to C++.
The problem with the patterns book is that it does not really say why the patterns are "good things." The reasons of course have to do with coupling, cohesion, encapsulation and controlling connections and communication. The patterns in GoF are mostly just examples of these more basic principles. (check out Fundamentals of O-O design in UML by Meilir page-jones for an interesting discussion of fundamental principles.)
Actually, GoF does describe just why patterns are good, and furthermore gives a rather in depth (if terse) description of just how to couple your classes. Most people skip the entirely crucial beginning of the book ("I already know what OOP is, I don't need to read that") and head straight for the catalog.
How to judge if an OO book is good or not:
Read the sections on why object oriented programming is a good thing.
Challenge the authors positions: Think, and write down counter-arguments or other perspectives.
Reread, looking for answers to your doubts. If you found them, it's a good book, saying something worthwhile.
Most books go into the "It just feels right" diatribe. Or, they go into the "Reuse, reuse, reuse", as if we could inherit the world (hell, all our programs should just be 5 little lines of modification to some other program, right?). My favorite are the Zen books that talk about how it's a whole new [cosmic] way of thinking.
I put these books in my mental shredder.
Design Patterns is different. It explains rather rigorously (but not mathematically rigorously), supporting it's claims rationally.
If you've read the design patterns book, read it again. The real treasure is not the catalog, but the introductory sections, from which the catalog can be derived.
> But it is garbage collected. It also has no pointers
Sure, Python is like this too; I encourage you to check it out.
Here's hello world in Python:
print "Hello, world."
Here's a simple encounter on the python interpreter:
>>> x = 5
>>> x
5
>>> y = 10
>>> y
10
>>> x = y + x
>>> x
15
>>> l = ["hello", "my", "friend"]
>>> l[-1]
'friend'
My students can write whole functions and play with the language with incredible ease. Many walk along in their python interpreters as the lecture progresses in real time.
No compiling, no fiddling, just raw, unadulterated interactive programming.
I have an unfortunate bias; I work at a video game middleware company, and we're strictly C++, as is most of the game industry.
My Java is very very very rusty, and I can't responsibly teach it.
My career has been entirely C, C++, and Objective-C. (I've used Python and Perl for a few scripts.) Maybe I'm just weird, but I haven't used JAVA professionally once, and my coworkers and friends haven't either. WEll, they may have, but it just hasn't come to my attention.
People are into Java servlets, but beyond that, I'd be at a loss to say where they are being used; perhaps you could help me out here? I know that our local metro uses Java to display bus schedules, but that's because it was a university project.
If my students got stuck away doing maintenance on 5 year old systems, I don't think they would mind to much; it beats a lot of their current jobs. They'd continue to come to the classes to further learn, and develop their skills, provided that they didn't have to move away. Once they get to a certain level, they feel comfortable teaching themselves and learning on their own, as a few of my students have done. They can keep developing, and get out of the maintenance positions.
One of my students wants to do embedded work; He learns C from me, and teaches himself Ada. I don't think Java will do him too much good. Then again, I don't know much about embedded stuff.
I've noticed a disturbing trend in the replies; That is, most of them focus on language features.
For example, they say, "Oh, they should use this, because it has good OO," or, "Oh, use [C/ASM], because it's low level, and good programmers know how low level stuff works", or, "Use [C++/Java], because that's what the industry uses", or "Use XYZ because it's got a good set of libraries," etc., etc.,.
These folks have obviously never taught people who haven't programmed before.
These are people who are going to struggle with variables. These are people who can't write a for loop to save their lives. They can't use a function, much less a method.
OOP, pointers, bits&bytes, libraries; None of that matters for at least 3-6 months.
This is why I highly recommend either LOGO or Python as a first language. These are interactive interpreters. You need to be able to say, "X=4", and then say, "what is X?", and then reassign X. You need these basic things.
Once the concepts of variables, loops, and functions are in place, then you can easily map to other languages. I know this because I've taught it. I also know this because I've consoled students crying over their Java homework (quite literally) at the end of the semester, incapable of using a for loop. These are good students.
As programmers, we take a lot for granted.
So forget all this "X features OOP, Y has a good lib, Z is low level," and think: Variables, Flow Control, Functions. The rest will follow naturally after these are ingrained and easily used.
I teach free programming classes in Seattle. Since I teach classes for free, I don't have the economic pressure to teach JAVA or C++. I could write whole articles about the damage that certification programs do to people. Another problem is that people look at the Jobs page, discover that most industry programmers are doing something called "JAVA" or "C++". They open up the university catalog and see, "Learn JAVA in 3 months!!!" ($1500), right next to the A+ certification houses. Since the ads are all over the place, they figure that it must be the way. They take a class, and drop out halfway through. The experienced programmers with CS degrees taking JAVA to learn a new language make the newcomers feel pathetic, and they decide programming isn't for them. If only I could copy the experiences in my mind for y'all... It's really bleak.
College is a different situation. I think the reason the profs teach JAVA is because they actually bought (and contributed to!) the hoop-lah about OOP, in a theoretical rather than economic way.
Python. They learn to use variables, flow control, and functions in Python. Lists, Strings, Tuples, Dictionaries, Integers, and Files.
C. They learn what bits and bytes are, binary logic, pointers, and some OS details.
Python. They learn what classes and objects are. More importantly, we go over Design Patterns book, full of designs that extend in scope well beyond OOP.
C++. They use classes and objects in C++.
Python. Functional notations such as filter and map.
Python. How to interface between C and Python.
It is with great sadness that I teach my students OOP, as it is over-hyped, and people believe in it religiously and without question. I teach it in order to prepare them for the world that will hire them.
The primary value in OOP, as far as I can tell, is thinking about the data first, and language features supporting polymorphism. Also, the book "Design Patterns" is the most (and quite possibly only) valuable piece of literature from the OOP community. I stress that it doesn't require a particular language or ideology to implement polymorphic behavior, or to think about the data first, or to implement a common pattern. (Device drivers and web servers are great examples of objects exhibiting polymorphism and encapsulation. In Non-OO speak, that's the product of paying attention to coupling and cohesion, which takes us right back to... The Unix Philosophy.)
I teach C so that they see low level stuff, and Python, for reasons to numerous to list. I teach C++ so that they can get hired.
One of the reasons for listing Python: They can start writing programs from day 1, second 1. No fussing with heavy class notations, like Java forces you to. (Just look at Java's hello world.) To believe that new students learn about OOP by using Java is hopelessly naive. Most students I've seen working with Java as a first language struggle with making for loops, while loops, and using variables. (Of course, several students will defend their teacher and difficult learning by give you the rhetoric that OOP is the way, and that Java is great because it's... OOP! You can feel the difference!)
I want to show that that is not the case. When Sakura can hold a mouse and click links, she can look at any page she wants to. Oh no! What if she sees porn on the Internet?! Since she's already seen hentai (I'd link to something better, but fear the slashdotting...) on the TV/VCR (she doesn't bat an eye), she shouldn't be all that surprised. I don't think the better resolution will have a huge affect on her.
You may believe and teach your children that sexual material is harmful, evil, and fearful; I, however, will not.
"Sakura, I have no idea what that thing is. I think it's some guys anus, but it's not one like I've ever seen before... Pretty nasty looking, if you ask me, though. Try not to get like that, if you can avoid it."
After I quit working on the Macintosh keyboards, the puck mouse, and the picnic table "desk" that was up way too high.
Shooting pains are not just imagined. I couldn't write at home because my hand would freak at the slightest exertion of effort. My life is code and paper is my primary resource. I was crippled while working with the Macs. (OS X Server, incidentally, not that the OS matters too much, save with respect to how fast it lets you set your mouse speed.)
This reminds me of an experience with a coworker. He, a staunch republican, noted just how phony environmentalist concerns were. "A while ago, everyone was complaining about how CFC's would destroy the world by now. But see? Everything is perfectly fine." I said, "Well, yah; That's because you are forbidden to produce CFC's now, save in a few developing countries who's time is almost up." I suspect the same sort of thing going on here. We've learned to work around Carpal Tunnel, so well, that people think it's just a myth.
I'm a collection of experiences, memory, and light processing systems, but I don't have this weird pseudo-mystical thing that some morons compute about.
Once, I met a task that said it was aware. I said, "Of course you are processing light patterns." The task replied to me, "Right, I'm processing light patterns, but it's different, I'm actually experiencing it. I said, "Of course you are, my scan of your brain AI is occuring."
My contentment rating increased, because I had helped purify the system. But this beliggerent process would not stop. "No! No! You don't get it!", it said. "The processing is occuring, but there's something else; I'm seeing it- this patterns appear before me." He rambled on for some time, and then got to his crux: "The difference between this thing- which I'll call awareness- and the processing that is going on- is that the processing does not require it, and yet it is still there."
I found his nonsense absurd and disagreeable. I reported to central computing this processes insanity, but only after attempting a little more reasoning, to salvage the rogue process: "Surely you recognize that your 'awareness'- is merely a dangler and a phantom belief. Have you cleared yourself through the Computer Science program? Perhaps a little time within an electric fence will assist? Surely you know that you have some residual data from prior superstitious existance within the random garbage data before your allocation. Your computational appendix, this strange persistance within you, is completely illusory and inconsequential."
But I was not allowed to finish my sentence, for after uttering the word "appendix", the bugged process shouted profanities and said such incoherent nonsense as, "I AM THAT APPENDIX!". The process was clearly delerious, and thus I had him scheduled for termination with the Scheduler.
You might want to also check out Geeks into the Streets - "Geeks Into The Streets (GITS) is an opportunity for people who love computers to bring them to people who might otherwise not have access to them." Their primary project is House Agape.
My students are quite capable with Apache, CGI, and databases, but they have incredible difficulty getting someone to pay them anything. They've trained themselves on Free/OpenSource software because it's available, and because they can work with it and learn from it.
These folk will work for dirt cheap.
I ask my friend Ross, marketing analyst and owner of a company, "Why are you installing IIS? It costs much more than Linux, and a well maintained Linux system is far more secure, and comes with good free database software, should you ever decide to grow that way." He says, "Because UNIX admins cost $100,000/yr, whereas an MCSE lackey costs half that."
I've got one student who has set up ArsDigita Community systems, Oracle databases, Linux, FreeBSD, reads kernel source, and has written some programs in C, tcl, Perl, and Python. He's working as a stocker for some odd store. He's configured systems left and right. He's dying to get a $38,000/year job somewhere doing anything. In his free time, he works on studying embedded systems and attending GSLUG meetings.
He's not an isolated case, I have many other well talented students who are working hard and doing well, developing their talents.
They want jobs. Any jobs, just to show off their talent and get experience.
So when I read: "Unfortunately OSS engineers typically cost much more than MCSEs," I wonder: What crack is everybody smoking? There's plenty of great UNIX people out there. who will work for cheap..!
Slashdot Mirror
For just pennies a day, the cost of a cup of coffee, you can save one of thousands of OpenSource developers like these:
Camera pans down and to the left to the image of a shrunken, pale, programmer, intraveneously importing deep brown coffee into his system, working with gdb on debugging a file system.
For just Pennies a day, you can make all the difference for a programmer who has no life, no future. When you pledge your pennies, you will receive, with every quarterly report, a low quality JPEG of your programmer, and also a plaintext email from your programmer, telling you about his dreams for his software.
(Camera pans up and to the right, focusing on an image of Linus Torvalds, with a silly grin, reaching out to punch a final semicolon on his keyboard.)
Just look at what previous contributions have done for these people; As your developer grows and grows, day by day, you will feel such pride at his accomplishments.
Please, go to your PayPal account, send a $15 contribution for this month to "lion@speakeasy.org" and have the satisfaction that for the pittance of a cup of coffee a day, you've made the world a better place.
Do you think I should be able to set up a shop on the Internet, promise to send shoes if you pay $5.00, and not send them to you?
Why not?
Should I be able to offer you $2,000 if you promise to be my slave for 2 years?
Why not?
(Both are, thank God, illegal.)
You make an interesting claim; do you care to back it up?
Hel-loooooooooooooooooo Protagoras!
Amazing to see you doing so well today, after all these years.
Indeed, and is it not written in the Book of Corporate Wisdom, (Tao of Programming 7.2), written by the venerable Yong Yo Sef and translated by Geoffrey James:
Basically, I like quality. A friend of mine told me about MegaTokyo. I didn't look at their web site, despite glowing reviews. Then another friend recommended it. Then another. I decided, "Hm, I think I'll look at this." Hey! Guess what? It's one of the best web comics I've ever read, right up there with electric sheep and Scott McCloud's stuff.
Speaking of McCloud- I've paid for his content. I bought it off line, but if it were online, I'd pay for it there too. Whoah! Wait! I have paid for it online! There you go.
The Internet is a total success for content. Just a bunch of people are saying, "There went my revenue", and proclaiming it as a disaster.
Whatever. I'm going to go back to the MegaTokyo forums now...
I attach my passwords to my monitor, and have no problem with it. I feel safer, since I now have hoards of passwords, a different one for each web site.
The obvious retort is, "But anyone can read it!"
Is that so? If anyone can read it, and presumably you are somebody, just tell me what my passwords are... C'mon, it's easy: They're right on my monitor. Go on then.
...
I'm waiting...
Somehow, I don't feel that "apt vs. urpmi" has gotten as much airtime as the aforementioned conflicts..."
Personally, I'd like to see the merits and demerits of both listed and "discussed".
I appreciate the irony, and feel the same way.
I am at a loss to understand /.'s behavior here.
Are you sure PayPal is credit card based? While I know that Amazon whacks off an incredible 15% from donations (!) and rides the CC system, if I recall correctly, Paypal is under 5%, and does NOT ride the credit card system.
Isn't he supposed to post right around now?
Actually, I don't think you can appeal to frames of reference here;
If I recall correctly, rotation is absolute. It has something to do with constant acceleration (change in velocity)...
If a person in outer space is in a closed box that is moving with linear motion, they will have no way of knowing whether they are moving or not. If they could see the universe outside, they could say, "The universe is going past me." But if the person in outer space is in a box that is spinning, they will know that the box is spinning, and they will not be able to [correctly] say, "The universe is spinning around me."
Someone who is good at Physics, please append a note to this.
I'm of the opinion that a student should come out of a CS curriculum knowing at the very least, 6 languages. An example set: a shell language, a little LISP, a little prolog, C, C++, and Python. 10 would be preferable. (Add a couple assembly languages, a little Java, SML-NJ). They don't have to master them; they just need enough to use them and understand what they can do.
Mastery of a language only comes through years of industry use. Mastery is only necessary for, say, 5% of programming tasks, and comes from self-teaching. I do not know any programmers who gained mastery of a language as part of a class. Mastery is self-taught, and mostly learned in industry.
I recommend Python as a primary language.
Now, on to mainstream. One, Python is becoming mainstream. But Two, you can teach someone a mainstream programming language quicker if you first introduce them to Python. In Python, they work out their mistakes with variables, flow control, and functions very quickly. THEN, you can go to C, and they already understand how they work. It's just a matter of syntax, and you're all ready to go with bits and bytes. Even greater savings if you are going to C++.
Actually, GoF does describe just why patterns are good, and furthermore gives a rather in depth (if terse) description of just how to couple your classes. Most people skip the entirely crucial beginning of the book ("I already know what OOP is, I don't need to read that") and head straight for the catalog.
How to judge if an OO book is good or not:
Most books go into the "It just feels right" diatribe. Or, they go into the "Reuse, reuse, reuse", as if we could inherit the world (hell, all our programs should just be 5 little lines of modification to some other program, right?). My favorite are the Zen books that talk about how it's a whole new [cosmic] way of thinking.
I put these books in my mental shredder.
Design Patterns is different. It explains rather rigorously (but not mathematically rigorously), supporting it's claims rationally.
If you've read the design patterns book, read it again. The real treasure is not the catalog, but the introductory sections, from which the catalog can be derived.
Sure, Python is like this too; I encourage you to check it out.
Here's hello world in Python:
print "Hello, world."
Here's a simple encounter on the python interpreter:
>>> x = 5
>>> x
5
>>> y = 10
>>> y
10
>>> x = y + x
>>> x
15
>>> l = ["hello", "my", "friend"]
>>> l[-1]
'friend'
My students can write whole functions and play with the language with incredible ease. Many walk along in their python interpreters as the lecture progresses in real time.
No compiling, no fiddling, just raw, unadulterated interactive programming.
When my students can just type, interactively:
>>> def foo( bar ):
... print bar*3
...
>>> foo( "Hello!" )
Hello!Hello!Hello!
>>>
...it's a very good thing. It makes everything so easy.
I have an unfortunate bias; I work at a video game middleware company, and we're strictly C++, as is most of the game industry.
My Java is very very very rusty, and I can't responsibly teach it.
My career has been entirely C, C++, and Objective-C. (I've used Python and Perl for a few scripts.) Maybe I'm just weird, but I haven't used JAVA professionally once, and my coworkers and friends haven't either. WEll, they may have, but it just hasn't come to my attention.
People are into Java servlets, but beyond that, I'd be at a loss to say where they are being used; perhaps you could help me out here? I know that our local metro uses Java to display bus schedules, but that's because it was a university project.
If my students got stuck away doing maintenance on 5 year old systems, I don't think they would mind to much; it beats a lot of their current jobs. They'd continue to come to the classes to further learn, and develop their skills, provided that they didn't have to move away. Once they get to a certain level, they feel comfortable teaching themselves and learning on their own, as a few of my students have done. They can keep developing, and get out of the maintenance positions.
One of my students wants to do embedded work; He learns C from me, and teaches himself Ada. I don't think Java will do him too much good. Then again, I don't know much about embedded stuff.
I've noticed a disturbing trend in the replies; That is, most of them focus on language features.
For example, they say, "Oh, they should use this, because it has good OO," or, "Oh, use [C/ASM], because it's low level, and good programmers know how low level stuff works", or, "Use [C++/Java], because that's what the industry uses", or "Use XYZ because it's got a good set of libraries," etc., etc.,.
These folks have obviously never taught people who haven't programmed before.
These are people who are going to struggle with variables. These are people who can't write a for loop to save their lives. They can't use a function, much less a method.
OOP, pointers, bits&bytes, libraries; None of that matters for at least 3-6 months.
This is why I highly recommend either LOGO or Python as a first language. These are interactive interpreters. You need to be able to say, "X=4", and then say, "what is X?", and then reassign X. You need these basic things.
Once the concepts of variables, loops, and functions are in place, then you can easily map to other languages. I know this because I've taught it. I also know this because I've consoled students crying over their Java homework (quite literally) at the end of the semester, incapable of using a for loop. These are good students.
As programmers, we take a lot for granted.
So forget all this "X features OOP, Y has a good lib, Z is low level," and think: Variables, Flow Control, Functions. The rest will follow naturally after these are ingrained and easily used.
I teach free programming classes in Seattle. Since I teach classes for free, I don't have the economic pressure to teach JAVA or C++. I could write whole articles about the damage that certification programs do to people. Another problem is that people look at the Jobs page, discover that most industry programmers are doing something called "JAVA" or "C++". They open up the university catalog and see, "Learn JAVA in 3 months!!!" ($1500), right next to the A+ certification houses. Since the ads are all over the place, they figure that it must be the way. They take a class, and drop out halfway through. The experienced programmers with CS degrees taking JAVA to learn a new language make the newcomers feel pathetic, and they decide programming isn't for them. If only I could copy the experiences in my mind for y'all... It's really bleak.
College is a different situation. I think the reason the profs teach JAVA is because they actually bought (and contributed to!) the hoop-lah about OOP, in a theoretical rather than economic way.
I teach my students in the following order:
It is with great sadness that I teach my students OOP, as it is over-hyped, and people believe in it religiously and without question. I teach it in order to prepare them for the world that will hire them.
The primary value in OOP, as far as I can tell, is thinking about the data first, and language features supporting polymorphism. Also, the book "Design Patterns" is the most (and quite possibly only) valuable piece of literature from the OOP community. I stress that it doesn't require a particular language or ideology to implement polymorphic behavior, or to think about the data first, or to implement a common pattern. (Device drivers and web servers are great examples of objects exhibiting polymorphism and encapsulation. In Non-OO speak, that's the product of paying attention to coupling and cohesion, which takes us right back to... The Unix Philosophy.)
I teach C so that they see low level stuff, and Python, for reasons to numerous to list. I teach C++ so that they can get hired.
One of the reasons for listing Python: They can start writing programs from day 1, second 1. No fussing with heavy class notations, like Java forces you to. (Just look at Java's hello world.) To believe that new students learn about OOP by using Java is hopelessly naive. Most students I've seen working with Java as a first language struggle with making for loops, while loops, and using variables. (Of course, several students will defend their teacher and difficult learning by give you the rhetoric that OOP is the way, and that Java is great because it's... OOP! You can feel the difference!)
In Japan, kids get porn and nobody blinks. It's just normal. They've done alright under this system.
Hm, I have a daughter. If she'd like to, she can go to the X-rated movie.
I don't think she'd be into it, though.
This is a good question, and I'll see if I can answer to you, and your peers, satisfaction.
Let's see... Well, I linked to Sakura ("that child", my daughter) because I wanted to show that I do indeed have a daughter.
A lot of the time, people who are fearful of sex, "stretched bodily holes", any threat to their authority/concept of decency, children learning the truth about sex, and Harry Potter, suggest that people who are into unrestricted Internet access don't have kids of their own.
I want to show that that is not the case. When Sakura can hold a mouse and click links, she can look at any page she wants to. Oh no! What if she sees porn on the Internet?! Since she's already seen hentai (I'd link to something better, but fear the slashdotting...) on the TV/VCR (she doesn't bat an eye), she shouldn't be all that surprised. I don't think the better resolution will have a huge affect on her.
You may believe and teach your children that sexual material is harmful, evil, and fearful; I, however, will not.
I imagine it would go something like this:
"Sakura, I have no idea what that thing is. I think it's some guys anus, but it's not one like I've ever seen before... Pretty nasty looking, if you ask me, though. Try not to get like that, if you can avoid it."
Sure, my pain "just went away"...
After I quit working on the Macintosh keyboards, the puck mouse, and the picnic table "desk" that was up way too high.
Shooting pains are not just imagined. I couldn't write at home because my hand would freak at the slightest exertion of effort. My life is code and paper is my primary resource. I was crippled while working with the Macs. (OS X Server, incidentally, not that the OS matters too much, save with respect to how fast it lets you set your mouse speed.)
This reminds me of an experience with a coworker. He, a staunch republican, noted just how phony environmentalist concerns were. "A while ago, everyone was complaining about how CFC's would destroy the world by now. But see? Everything is perfectly fine." I said, "Well, yah; That's because you are forbidden to produce CFC's now, save in a few developing countries who's time is almost up." I suspect the same sort of thing going on here. We've learned to work around Carpal Tunnel, so well, that people think it's just a myth.
Hi, I'm Minsk. I'm not aware.
I'm a collection of experiences, memory, and light processing systems, but I don't have this weird pseudo-mystical thing that some morons compute about.
Once, I met a task that said it was aware. I said, "Of course you are processing light patterns." The task replied to me, "Right, I'm processing light patterns, but it's different, I'm actually experiencing it. I said, "Of course you are, my scan of your brain AI is occuring."
My contentment rating increased, because I had helped purify the system. But this beliggerent process would not stop. "No! No! You don't get it!", it said. "The processing is occuring, but there's something else; I'm seeing it- this patterns appear before me." He rambled on for some time, and then got to his crux: "The difference between this thing- which I'll call awareness- and the processing that is going on- is that the processing does not require it, and yet it is still there."
I found his nonsense absurd and disagreeable. I reported to central computing this processes insanity, but only after attempting a little more reasoning, to salvage the rogue process: "Surely you recognize that your 'awareness'- is merely a dangler and a phantom belief. Have you cleared yourself through the Computer Science program? Perhaps a little time within an electric fence will assist? Surely you know that you have some residual data from prior superstitious existance within the random garbage data before your allocation. Your computational appendix, this strange persistance within you, is completely illusory and inconsequential."
But I was not allowed to finish my sentence, for after uttering the word "appendix", the bugged process shouted profanities and said such incoherent nonsense as, "I AM THAT APPENDIX!". The process was clearly delerious, and thus I had him scheduled for termination with the Scheduler.
After all, You Can't Argue With a Zombie.
There is a well written paper The Computer Clubhouse: Technological Fluency in the Inner City that I just found by doing a web search. It includes a list of principles to keep in mind when teaching kids.
You might want to also check out Geeks into the Streets - "Geeks Into The Streets (GITS) is an opportunity for people who love computers to bring them to people who might otherwise not have access to them." Their primary project is House Agape.
That's odd...
My students are quite capable with Apache, CGI, and databases, but they have incredible difficulty getting someone to pay them anything. They've trained themselves on Free/OpenSource software because it's available, and because they can work with it and learn from it.
These folk will work for dirt cheap.
I ask my friend Ross, marketing analyst and owner of a company, "Why are you installing IIS? It costs much more than Linux, and a well maintained Linux system is far more secure, and comes with good free database software, should you ever decide to grow that way." He says, "Because UNIX admins cost $100,000/yr, whereas an MCSE lackey costs half that."
I've got one student who has set up ArsDigita Community systems, Oracle databases, Linux, FreeBSD, reads kernel source, and has written some programs in C, tcl, Perl, and Python. He's working as a stocker for some odd store. He's configured systems left and right. He's dying to get a $38,000/year job somewhere doing anything. In his free time, he works on studying embedded systems and attending GSLUG meetings.
He's not an isolated case, I have many other well talented students who are working hard and doing well, developing their talents.
They want jobs. Any jobs, just to show off their talent and get experience.
So when I read: "Unfortunately OSS engineers typically cost much more than MCSEs," I wonder: What crack is everybody smoking? There's plenty of great UNIX people out there. who will work for cheap..!