Learnable Programming Here's a trick question: How do we get people to understand programming? Khan Academy recently launched an online environment for learning to program. It offers a set of tutorials based on the JavaScript and Processing languages, and features a "live coding" environment, where the program's output updates as the programmer types. Because my work was cited as an inspiration for the Khan system, I felt I should respond with two thoughts about learning: Programming is a way of thinking, not a rote skill. Thus, the goals of a programming system should be: to support and encourage powerful ways of thinkingto enable programmers to see and understand the execution of their programs A live-coding Processing environment addresses neither of these goals. Alan Perlis wrote, "To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program." How do we get people to understand programming? We change programming. Contents A programming system has two parts. The language should provide: Wait.
language agnostic - What's your most controversial programming opinion Top 10 Pinterest Pins This Week We repin images on Pinterest that capture our attention and inspire new ideas. This week's top 10 Pinterest pins contains 10 items that will have you clicking the "repin" button. This week, we included pins that ranged from handy household items to helpful tips for living. Pinners this week were quick to repin a special hairbrush that uses absorbent microfiber bristles to dry your hair as you brush. (Don't worry, it has a mildew guard!) We also included some handy kitchen utensils and a guide that will help you start to eat healthier. FOLLOW: Mashable on Pinterest For our top 10 pins post, we use Pinterest analytics tool Repinly to see what pinners are repinning and find interesting. What were some of your favorite Pinterest pins this week? Mashable See On Thumbnail Courtesy of Etsy, Fishstikks
Manifesto for Minimalist Software Engineers | Minifesto.org No Studying After 5pm: Using Parkinson's Law to Kick Procrastination's Ass I’ve recently made four lifestyle changes that have allowed me to get more done and put much more effort into everything I do, all while feeling great with very little stress. I sleep 8 hours a dayI work out for an hour every weekdayI hide all clocks while I’m workingI don’t do anything related to academics on Saturdays and past 5pm on weekdays My main focus of this post is the last two, but I’ll briefly address the first two because I think they’re very important. Sleep I read a lot of what tech entrepreneurs have to say, and I’ve noticed a trend. Working more hours in a day doesn’t necessarily correlate with getting more done. Exercise I also made a habit of going to the gym every day from 5-6pm. Parkinson’s Law But my real trick for getting more done with much less stress is in the things that I don’t do. Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.— Cyril Northcote Parkinson Focus Scott H. Distractions Cover the clocks So I eliminate clocks whenever I’m working.
(2) Chinese Room Menu, Menu for Chinese Room, Kothrud Pune Chinese Room Oriental ( CRO) Was my favourite restaurant when I was in school ....! Anytime, anyone , used to ask me where I wanted to go, pat came the reply.....CRO ! I was passing by the other day....and realized that it had been a very long time since I visited this place.... Hoping to have the same delightful experience....I walked in. Looks like nothing has changed in terms of decor, in all these years.....the same Oriental theme obvious in the artifacts and overall interior. Chicken Wonton soup- The same taste that I remember.....a teeny tiny piece of chicken inside huge wantons, in a clear broth....with lots of fresh spring onion. Paper wrapped Chicken (steamed) - Now this one is really good...! Veg Fried Rice - Decent... Shredded Lamb with diced Capsicum - This one had lamb, onion, capsicum in a medium spicy, brown sauce... Stewed Chicken with Green Onion - I like bland food in general.... so I liked this one. Desert- This was the moment I was waiting for...
Fred Hates It Management has a set of power words that it’s appropriated as a means of giving it a sense of identity. This list is endless and entertaining. When these words are spoken, they are said in such a way that you are meant to wonder in awe, “What does that mean?” but you don’t ask for fear of looking like an idiot. Today’s word: off-site. Now that you understand what it is, let’s understand why you might hate it. Why I Get in Fred’s Face The reason an off-site exists is simple: you, the leader of the people, need certain essential work to occur that cannot easily occur now under normal conditions within the building. So you got in Fred’s face. At an organizational size that varies for every team, natural cross-pollination and communication activities that used to happen organically, that allowed for cultural and strategic work to get done, and allowed for big decisions to be made, can no longer occur. Zeitgeist has become diluted. You need a well designed off-site. Fred hates it.
7 Python Libraries you should know about In my years of programming in Python and roaming around GitHub's Explore section, I've come across a few libraries that stood out to me as being particularly enjoyable to use. This blog post is an effort to further spread that knowledge. I specifically excluded awesome libs like requests, SQLAlchemy, Flask, fabric etc. because I think they're already pretty "main-stream". If you know what you're trying to do, it's almost guaranteed that you'll stumble over the aforementioned. This is a list of libraries that in my opinion should be better known, but aren't. 1. pyquery (with lxml) pip install pyquery For parsing HTML in Python, Beautiful Soup is oft recommended and it does a great job. Just how slow? What immediately stands out is how fast lxml is. So either slow and easy to use or fast and hard to use, right? Wrong! Enter PyQuery Oh PyQuery you beautiful seductress: from pyquery import PyQuerypage = PyQuery(some_html) last_red_anchor = page('#container > a.red:last') Easy as pie. 2. dateutil
The Film Sufi: "About Elly" - Asghar Farhadi (2009) When middle-class Iranians in Tehran have a holiday, they often like to escape their dry urban confines and trek up north to the Caspian seaside, where everything is cooler and greener. It’s also an opportunity for people to be a little more casual and relaxed in the open air. About Elly (Darbareye Elly, 2009) is a deceptively clever film about one such holiday visit, where events don’t go exactly as planned. The film was written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, whose subsequent production was the more famous and highly praised A Separation (2011), which won the US Oscar for Best Foreign Film. The principal characters are a group of holiday travelers who are linked by old friendships formed years before at law school: Sepideh is the vivacious social organizer and energizer of the group. Sepideh then pleads with the local caretaker woman in private that they really need a nice place, because Elly and Ahmad are on their honeymoon. Now the finger-pointing begins. Notes:
Rands In Repose How To Reverse a Linked List (3 Different Ways) Introduction There are a couple of ways to reverse a linked list. One of them requires knowledge of pointers and one of them is pretty straight forward. In this article, 3 different methods of reversing a linked list are demonstrated. All the linked list reversing algorithms assume that the given linked list is a double linked list. Technique 1 In this way, a new linked list will be created and all the items of the first linked list will be added to the new linked list in reverse order. public void ReverseLinkedList (LinkedList linkedList) { LinkedList copyList = new LinkedList(); LinkedListNode start = linkedList.Tail; while (start ! This way is probably the most inefficient among the three. Technique 2 In this method, we will swap linked list node objects (references to the data). Assuming we have N nodes in the link list: Swap: 1st node’s object with Nth node’s object Swap: 2nd node’s object with (N-1)th node’s object Swap: 3rd node’s object with (N-2)th node’s object After swapping:
Dionysus The earliest cult images of Dionysus show a mature male, bearded and robed. He holds a fennel staff, tipped with a pine-cone and known as a thyrsus. Later images show him as a beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked androgynous youth: the literature describes him as womanly or "man-womanish".[10] In its fully developed form, his central cult imagery shows his triumphant, disorderly arrival or return, as if from some place beyond the borders of the known and civilized. His procession (thiasus) is made up of wild female followers (maenads) and bearded satyrs with erect penises. Some are armed with the thyrsus, some dance or play music. The god himself is drawn in a chariot, usually by exotic beasts such as lions or tigers, and is sometimes attended by a bearded, drunken Silenus. He was also known as Bacchus (/ˈbækəs/ or /ˈbɑːkəs/; Greek: Βάκχος, Bakkhos), the name adopted by the Romans[12] and the frenzy he induces, bakkheia. Names Etymology Epithets Acroreites at Sicyon.[24] Mythology
Coding Horror Leasing a Car Overview" Some of the sweetest car lease deals have dried up -- especially since automakers began offering zero-percent and low-rate financing to entice buyers. Even so, leasing remains an attractive alternative to buying a new vehicle for many motorists. Half of all luxury cars are still leased, as are more than 20 percent of vehicles in general. For most consumers, leasing a new vehicle every two or three years would be more expensive than buying one and keeping it after the final payment. Other consumers are quite content to lease a vehicle they could never afford to buy, even if it doesn't necessarily save money. Leasing has two principal benefits: (1) You can drive a newer vehicle that is always under warranty and seldom needs more than routine maintenance, and (2) you can often get a larger, more luxurious, better-equipped car. In this article, we'll help you get a better understanding of this alternative to buying, making it easier to decide whether leasing makes sense for you.