The article mentioned the results for Bing and Google, so I decided to do a little investigation. If you search for "browser" on Bing, the top 10 results are quite similar, with one notable absence - no Firefox or Mozilla pages appear. Does this seem fishy to anyone else?
High school computer science teacher here in my 4th year of teaching. This year, I've emphasized group programming much more than the past 3 - I used to do 50/50 group/individual in-class stuff, but this year nearly every in-class exercise is done with randomly-assigned partners in my Intro and AP courses. The difference in comprehension is astounding - students are grasping concepts much quicker than usual. The thing is, when they go off on their own to do individual assignments now, they do so with much more confidence, thanks to the discussions they were able to have with their partners.
FYI, I teach at an all-girls school, so it's possible that these are unique results for girls, but I imagine that boys would similarly benefit from working with partners.
Re:computers come with accessible languages
on
Land of Lisp
·
· Score: 1
Here's some Python, that will work in Python 3.1 (which is the most consistent for educational purposes, in my opinion). No external libraries required - all the standard distributions of Python 3.1 include turtle graphics.
from turtle import * tracer(10, 0) # speeds up display - turtles can be slow! for x in range(-160, 160):
color(x / 320 % 1, x / 160 % 1, x / 100 % 1)
penup()
goto(-x, -100)
pendown()
goto(x, 100)
Exactly why I hope to work on getting (or see someone else work on getting) the new turtle module ported to work with Canvas objects. It has a couple very straightforward interfaces, and would be awesome for creating animations - and it has the added bonus of probably not being that hard to port.
Obviously a port of SDL (and thus all the libraries/modules that depend upon it, such as pygame) or pyglet is not likely to happen, but it seems like there will be quite a few simpler options. And this also opens the doors for other, web-Python specific libraries that use HTML/Canvas as their primary means of output...
JavaScript has a lot going for it, but it also has quite a few downsides. Just off the top of my head:
A very obscure sense of "type." While Python is looser than many languages in this regard, Python throws the concept of type out the window. The prototype system, while incredibly flexible, is best used by people who already understand object-oriented programming. It's difficult to start with that.
No strong set of coding rules/guidelines. Semicolons are semi-optional, variables can be declared but don't have to be, functions can be defined using multiple syntaxes... Many beginning (high school-aged) programmers are used to a system where there is One Right Answer. Programming introduces the idea that there is more than one way to solve the same problem. To throw JavaScript's notion that there is more than one way to express the same answer into the mix seems like too much.
It's great that JavaScript can be used from within a web browser. However, doing anything meaningful using JavaScript with a web browser requires at least a working knowledge of HTML and the DOM. I'd rather focus on the basics of programming separate from that first.
Speaking of web browsers, JavaScript implementations from browser-to-browser have nontrivial differences. Again, I'd prefer to focus on the bigger concepts without getting bogged down in implementation details.
As a high school computer science teacher, I can see a practical application of this. Currently, I think Python is one of the best languages to learn basic programming concepts with, in that it is relatively straightforward, powerful, and there's not much "voodoo" to prevent students from diving right into programming. It's possible to do some really cool things in Python with not much code.
However, one of the problems is that it can be difficult to give students a way to show off their code. Since it's an interpreted language, they can't just give an.exe or a.app file to someone else to show it off - they need to say, "Oh, go and install Python, and these libraries, etc." Yes, there are solutions such as py2exe and py2app, but getting these set up can be quite a task in itself. By running Python inside JavaScript, you basically open up the whole web-connected world as a potential audience to these budding programmers. It's much easier to say, "Hey, check out this link!" than "Hey, download Python (but get the right version) and this graphics library, then download my.py file, and open up a command prompt and type python blahblah.py!"
A good mainframe would last decades. Google's frankenframe (lets call it what it is) must be sloughing off parts like skin cells from a Texan with eczema.
In the computer world, where Moore's law reigns supreme, I would much prefer to have an excuse to refresh my hardware every few years and take advantage of all the advancements of technology that have taken place in that time. It seems that Google has figured out how to make this sort of thing modular and easily swappable, so kudos to them.
I'm almost certain that's for cost reasons. Sure, Google could probably get Gigabyte to custom-make a board - but then they'd have to pay that much extra to custom-design it, and Gigabyte would probably charge them a little bit more. As it is, they can just use the same lines that Gigabyte is already running, and get the same hefty discount that Joe the Computer builder gets from the massive volume they're running.
Do universities count as large organizations? I know Case Western Reserve University does some sort of Google Apps outsourcing, and I believe there are quite a few other universities and liberal arts colleges that do the same.
I have been using tomato for about a month, and am VERY happy with it. The interface is pretty slick (semi-realtime SVG bandwidth graphs!), it has a much more flexible DHCP system (static IPs handed out via DHCP), it handles BitTorrent traffic more effectively, great QoS... overall, I've been impressed. Plus, you only need to flash your firmware once - not the crazy two-step process involved with OpenWRT and the like.
I remember doing this with Interplay's Descent. The problem was that it is very, VERY hard to cross your eyes that much - I think the mode was actually meant to be used with some sort of "3D glasses" that did some mirror work on a normal monitor to put the right images in front of your eyes. I could never get the unfocused images to line up using my own eyes, though.
Bullfrog's Msgic Carpet also had some neat "alternate" 3D modes - a 3D glasses mode (red/blue), as well as a "magic eye" mode that was a lot easier to see than the split-frame Descent mode. The "magic eye" mode actually used random dot stereograms, so there was no color information conveyed, but depth was actually pretty effectively conveyed.
This doesn't really address the author's original inquiry, but it is (what I would consider) an interesting use of SSH tunnels, in a readable tutorial. I set up something similar to "GoToMyPC" for my Dad, that allows web-based (over JavaVNC) secure remote access to his computers:
I found it to be one of the funniest "foot" articles I've read on Slashdot... wonderful satirical commentary on the current "hot" issues in gaming, and some of the more annoying ones.
Re:I tried it and had a gripe, so I stopped using
on
Yahoo Launches Dashboard
·
· Score: 3, Informative
If you hit the F8 key, it will bring up the "Heads Up Display"), showing you all your Widgets. If you hit Win+D, it will show you your desktop (which is sort of what Win+D is supposed to do). If you would rather use a Windows combination to see your desktop AND your Widgets, then hit Win+M, which will minimize all windows.
Although these haven't really taken off on Linux yet, there are several "widget engines" (for lack of a better, encapsulating term) that have become quite popular over the past couple years. You mentioned a desire to do small, web-fetching things - that's what many Widgets end up being. On top of that, the logic is usually handled with readable scripting languages, there's usually no compilation required, and it's very easy to get nice-looking graphics up alongside the code.
I've recently started doing most of my personal development in the Yahoo! Widget Engine (formerly known as Konfabulator), which is available on both Windows and Mac. Here are a few of the Widget environments that I'm aware of...
Also by Garth Nix: Shade's Children and the Ragwitch. Both very good reads - my sister got me into Nix when she was a teenager, and both her and I very much enjoyed reading them.
Uh... isn't Talk a standalone application, and so it wouldn't really matter what browser you're using, as it doesn't use your browser at all? Unless you're referring to the process by which you download it?
Gmail has a "plain HTML view," as well, meant for browsers which don't support the AJAX stuff it does, and that should work fine with Opera.
Starting in 2004, the contest began at 12:40 pm presumably because ESPN started covering the event live. In 2004, ESPN hired Windfall Productions (Ralph J. Mole, Exec. Producer) who used six cameras, a live New York City crew and a TV mobile unit to produce a one hour network sports special about the contest. It was hosted by Gary Miller and was carried live in Times Square on the ABC "Jumbotron".
A quick peek at the Sourceforge CVS seems to indicate that the meet of things is done in Python, and they already have directories for Linux and Windows (although they're both sparse at the moment). My guess is that whoever was taking the most initiative in getting this done was/were Mac users, and so they wanted to see results there first.
It's also possible that they wanted to get a small sampling of the kind of activity they'd expect - releasing it Mac-only for now would allow them to gauge interest, and prepare for the bandwidth onslaught that will occur when the Windows version is released... maybe?
I don't think it'd be that hard for wireless router manufacturers to "mandate" people to modify the default settings, while still making it simple to use.
I.e.,
Plug in box Try to load webpage Get router configuration page instead: "You need to set some passwords!" (Admin password, WPA password) Explain what each password will be used for in the future, with screenshots maybe
There, that wasn't hard at all. I mean, since routers are the ones redirecting all the traffic and whatnot, there's nothing to stop them from being able to do that, and I think it's definitely possible to dumb it down enough for the "plug it in, it works" kind of user.
I just picked a WRT54G up for myself ($50 post-rebates, I guess they've been down to $40, but I was feeling impulsive and didn't feel like waiting). While I haven't gotten a chance to play with it much yet, it seems like it can do all the stuff that these so-called gaming routers are able to do, and much more... OpenWRT looks quite promising.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a cosmetic change. There is nothing visible that wasn't visible to begin with.
Agreed. The backlash after any Facebook redesign is ridiculous. Now we have to complain to the FTC?
The article mentioned the results for Bing and Google, so I decided to do a little investigation. If you search for "browser" on Bing, the top 10 results are quite similar, with one notable absence - no Firefox or Mozilla pages appear. Does this seem fishy to anyone else?
High school computer science teacher here in my 4th year of teaching. This year, I've emphasized group programming much more than the past 3 - I used to do 50/50 group/individual in-class stuff, but this year nearly every in-class exercise is done with randomly-assigned partners in my Intro and AP courses. The difference in comprehension is astounding - students are grasping concepts much quicker than usual. The thing is, when they go off on their own to do individual assignments now, they do so with much more confidence, thanks to the discussions they were able to have with their partners.
FYI, I teach at an all-girls school, so it's possible that these are unique results for girls, but I imagine that boys would similarly benefit from working with partners.
Here's some Python, that will work in Python 3.1 (which is the most consistent for educational purposes, in my opinion). No external libraries required - all the standard distributions of Python 3.1 include turtle graphics.
from turtle import *
tracer(10, 0) # speeds up display - turtles can be slow!
for x in range(-160, 160):
color(x / 320 % 1, x / 160 % 1, x / 100 % 1)
penup()
goto(-x, -100)
pendown()
goto(x, 100)
More fun, in my opinion, are recursive functions:
from turtle import *
delay(0)
def tree(length): .6) .6)
if length 1:
fd(length)
bk(length)
else:
fd(length)
lt(20)
tree(length *
rt(60)
tree(length *
lt(40)
bk(length)
lt(90)
tree(50)
Exactly why I hope to work on getting (or see someone else work on getting) the new turtle module ported to work with Canvas objects. It has a couple very straightforward interfaces, and would be awesome for creating animations - and it has the added bonus of probably not being that hard to port.
Obviously a port of SDL (and thus all the libraries/modules that depend upon it, such as pygame) or pyglet is not likely to happen, but it seems like there will be quite a few simpler options. And this also opens the doors for other, web-Python specific libraries that use HTML/Canvas as their primary means of output...
JavaScript has a lot going for it, but it also has quite a few downsides. Just off the top of my head:
As a high school computer science teacher, I can see a practical application of this. Currently, I think Python is one of the best languages to learn basic programming concepts with, in that it is relatively straightforward, powerful, and there's not much "voodoo" to prevent students from diving right into programming. It's possible to do some really cool things in Python with not much code.
However, one of the problems is that it can be difficult to give students a way to show off their code. Since it's an interpreted language, they can't just give an .exe or a .app file to someone else to show it off - they need to say, "Oh, go and install Python, and these libraries, etc." Yes, there are solutions such as py2exe and py2app, but getting these set up can be quite a task in itself. By running Python inside JavaScript, you basically open up the whole web-connected world as a potential audience to these budding programmers. It's much easier to say, "Hey, check out this link!" than "Hey, download Python (but get the right version) and this graphics library, then download my .py file, and open up a command prompt and type python blahblah.py!"
A good mainframe would last decades. Google's frankenframe (lets call it what it is) must be sloughing off parts like skin cells from a Texan with eczema.
In the computer world, where Moore's law reigns supreme, I would much prefer to have an excuse to refresh my hardware every few years and take advantage of all the advancements of technology that have taken place in that time. It seems that Google has figured out how to make this sort of thing modular and easily swappable, so kudos to them.
I'm almost certain that's for cost reasons. Sure, Google could probably get Gigabyte to custom-make a board - but then they'd have to pay that much extra to custom-design it, and Gigabyte would probably charge them a little bit more. As it is, they can just use the same lines that Gigabyte is already running, and get the same hefty discount that Joe the Computer builder gets from the massive volume they're running.
I for one heartily agree. (And yes, this comment is me doing some achievement-grabbing).
Do universities count as large organizations? I know Case Western Reserve University does some sort of Google Apps outsourcing, and I believe there are quite a few other universities and liberal arts colleges that do the same.
I have been using tomato for about a month, and am VERY happy with it. The interface is pretty slick (semi-realtime SVG bandwidth graphs!), it has a much more flexible DHCP system (static IPs handed out via DHCP), it handles BitTorrent traffic more effectively, great QoS... overall, I've been impressed. Plus, you only need to flash your firmware once - not the crazy two-step process involved with OpenWRT and the like.
I remember doing this with Interplay's Descent. The problem was that it is very, VERY hard to cross your eyes that much - I think the mode was actually meant to be used with some sort of "3D glasses" that did some mirror work on a normal monitor to put the right images in front of your eyes. I could never get the unfocused images to line up using my own eyes, though.
Bullfrog's Msgic Carpet also had some neat "alternate" 3D modes - a 3D glasses mode (red/blue), as well as a "magic eye" mode that was a lot easier to see than the split-frame Descent mode. The "magic eye" mode actually used random dot stereograms, so there was no color information conveyed, but depth was actually pretty effectively conveyed.
It is. Just like everyone else's.
This doesn't really address the author's original inquiry, but it is (what I would consider) an interesting use of SSH tunnels, in a readable tutorial. I set up something similar to "GoToMyPC" for my Dad, that allows web-based (over JavaVNC) secure remote access to his computers:
Java VNC over SSH
I found it to be one of the funniest "foot" articles I've read on Slashdot... wonderful satirical commentary on the current "hot" issues in gaming, and some of the more annoying ones.
If you hit the F8 key, it will bring up the "Heads Up Display"), showing you all your Widgets. If you hit Win+D, it will show you your desktop (which is sort of what Win+D is supposed to do). If you would rather use a Windows combination to see your desktop AND your Widgets, then hit Win+M, which will minimize all windows.
Although these haven't really taken off on Linux yet, there are several "widget engines" (for lack of a better, encapsulating term) that have become quite popular over the past couple years. You mentioned a desire to do small, web-fetching things - that's what many Widgets end up being. On top of that, the logic is usually handled with readable scripting languages, there's usually no compilation required, and it's very easy to get nice-looking graphics up alongside the code.
I've recently started doing most of my personal development in the Yahoo! Widget Engine (formerly known as Konfabulator), which is available on both Windows and Mac. Here are a few of the Widget environments that I'm aware of...
Also by Garth Nix: Shade's Children and the Ragwitch. Both very good reads - my sister got me into Nix when she was a teenager, and both her and I very much enjoyed reading them.
Shade's Children is one of my favorites.
Darn you all! You slashdotted my wiki host!
Good old Wikia, providing free MediaWikis (at http://www.wikicities.com/), and you had to go ahead and kill it. I hope you're proud of yourself.
Uh... isn't Talk a standalone application, and so it wouldn't really matter what browser you're using, as it doesn't use your browser at all? Unless you're referring to the process by which you download it?
Gmail has a "plain HTML view," as well, meant for browsers which don't support the AJAX stuff it does, and that should work fine with Opera.
Starting in 2004, the contest began at 12:40 pm presumably because ESPN started covering the event live. In 2004, ESPN hired Windfall Productions (Ralph J. Mole, Exec. Producer) who used six cameras, a live New York City crew and a TV mobile unit to produce a one hour network sports special about the contest. It was hosted by Gary Miller and was carried live in Times Square on the ABC "Jumbotron".
Man oh man, is that disgusting to watch...
A quick peek at the Sourceforge CVS seems to indicate that the meet of things is done in Python, and they already have directories for Linux and Windows (although they're both sparse at the moment). My guess is that whoever was taking the most initiative in getting this done was/were Mac users, and so they wanted to see results there first.
It's also possible that they wanted to get a small sampling of the kind of activity they'd expect - releasing it Mac-only for now would allow them to gauge interest, and prepare for the bandwidth onslaught that will occur when the Windows version is released... maybe?
I don't think it'd be that hard for wireless router manufacturers to "mandate" people to modify the default settings, while still making it simple to use.
I.e.,
Plug in box
Try to load webpage
Get router configuration page instead: "You need to set some passwords!" (Admin password, WPA password)
Explain what each password will be used for in the future, with screenshots maybe
There, that wasn't hard at all. I mean, since routers are the ones redirecting all the traffic and whatnot, there's nothing to stop them from being able to do that, and I think it's definitely possible to dumb it down enough for the "plug it in, it works" kind of user.
I just picked a WRT54G up for myself ($50 post-rebates, I guess they've been down to $40, but I was feeling impulsive and didn't feel like waiting). While I haven't gotten a chance to play with it much yet, it seems like it can do all the stuff that these so-called gaming routers are able to do, and much more... OpenWRT looks quite promising.