tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3898419730098445925.comments2015-08-31T08:28:43.440-07:00PATPAT: Program analysis, the practice and theoryMichael Ernsthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09671692869356186687noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3898419730098445925.post-30200288880304182542015-08-31T08:28:43.440-07:002015-08-31T08:28:43.440-07:00I don't find it sad. Rather, it shows that Pe...I don't find it sad. Rather, it shows that Peter is using an effective technique to help his students learn a skill that will be essential to their success.<br /><br />When my children go to swim camp, it is not sad that the instructors make them spend time in the water rather than letting them spend the day walking on their own two feet.Michael Ernsthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09671692869356186687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3898419730098445925.post-85081677891376085182015-08-05T03:07:13.364-07:002015-08-05T03:07:13.364-07:00How sad.
Only a German would prohibit Germans fro...How sad. <br />Only a German would prohibit Germans from using their mother tongue<br />(in their own country, no less). <br />Sounds like a teutonic uber-discharge of duty:<br />"You vill learn English. Jawohl!"WFThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16732355219274892930noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3898419730098445925.post-87444010161392596332012-12-11T20:17:22.270-08:002012-12-11T20:17:22.270-08:00Worse, it's usually no longer searchable.Worse, it's usually no longer searchable.Shriram Krishnamurthihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02956763366608000839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3898419730098445925.post-43974433670706333102012-12-11T20:16:19.141-08:002012-12-11T20:16:19.141-08:00This is very nice. However, my experience doing so...This is very nice. However, my experience doing something similar backfired quite terribly. <br /><br />I realized that the questions I was putting on exams were all the "interesting" things that came to mind; these are usually so open-ended that it's absurd to ask students to do them in any limited time-frame. <br /><br />I therefore gave students the option of having these be just written homeworks instead, they all voted in favor of the latter, and that's what I've done ever since, doing away with "exams" entirely.Shriram Krishnamurthihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02956763366608000839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3898419730098445925.post-90576773915583816492012-09-14T06:08:38.454-07:002012-09-14T06:08:38.454-07:00Michael, this sounds like a great class, and I cou...Michael, this sounds like a great class, and I couldn't agree with you more about the importance of working with real data.<br /><br />It sounds like Think Python is not a perfect match for your class, but that's part of the reason I put the book under a Creative Commons license. You should do a mash-up of Think Python and Think Stats!Allen Downeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01633071333405221858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3898419730098445925.post-76663688720690300092012-09-11T10:53:09.406-07:002012-09-11T10:53:09.406-07:00Thanks for the pointer to "Python for Informa...Thanks for the pointer to "Python for Informatics" -- I didn't know about this book, but from the preface it sounds like its goals are similar to mine. The following is from the preface:<br /><br /><br />My goal in SI502 is to teach people life-long data handling skills using Python. Few of my students were planning to be be professional computer programmers. Instead, they planned be librarians, managers, lawyers, biologists, economists, etc. who happened to want to skillfully use technology in their chosen field.<br /><br />...<br /><br />The first 10 chapters are similar to the Think Python book but there have been some changes. Nearly all number-oriented exercises have been replaced with data-oriented exercises. Topics are presented in the order to needed to build increasingly sophisticated data analysis solutions. Some topics like try and except are pulled forward and presented as part of the chapter on conditionals while other concepts like functions are left until they are needed to handle program complexity rather introduced as an early lesson in abstraction. The word “recursion” does not appear in the book at all.<br /><br />In chapters 11-15, nearly all of the material is brand new, focusing on real-world uses and simple examples of Python for data analysis including regular expressions for searching and parsing,Michael Ernsthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09671692869356186687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3898419730098445925.post-29128383197560331492012-09-10T17:43:15.175-07:002012-09-10T17:43:15.175-07:00Sounds like a great class! Weve been thinking abou...Sounds like a great class! Weve been thinking about and doing some similar things at the high school level and younger. Would be great to compare notes.<br /><br />btw, I came across this adaptation of Downeys book recently..<br />http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/python-for-informatics/id554638579?mt=13Tapanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15560048690787174423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3898419730098445925.post-58605536683113590972012-02-26T10:35:17.746-08:002012-02-26T10:35:17.746-08:00@rakingleaves: I've been trying voice recogni...@rakingleaves: I've been trying voice recognition on an Android phone for three months now -- I wanted to give it a fair trial before responding. My take is that it works well if there isn't much ambient noise, you aren't using any specialized vocabulary, and you are connected to the network. For me, it's not yet a competitor for local voice recognition with training for your own voice and your vocabulary.Michael Ernsthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09671692869356186687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3898419730098445925.post-954151530840425942011-12-12T17:07:35.519-08:002011-12-12T17:07:35.519-08:00The worst kind of defensive programming I've s...The worst kind of defensive programming I've seen is when an implementation detects incorrect (as per the spec) argument but, instead of failing (possibly with an exception or an error), it pretends that nothing happened. This usually results in an error further down the line, which is very hard to trace back to the original condition.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3898419730098445925.post-47971371090168714912011-09-24T14:19:24.186-07:002011-09-24T14:19:24.186-07:00Cool post! Regarding CPU usage for voice recognit...Cool post! Regarding CPU usage for voice recognition, the voice recognition on Android phones is surprisingly accurate, and it works by sending the audio over the network and performing the recognition on a server. I haven't tried dictating paragraphs of text this way (though 2 or 3 sentences works fine), and it won't work in an offline setting, but this kind of functionality isn't completely out of the question for an iPad-like device.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02324305849939236148noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3898419730098445925.post-42578105431776510192011-08-23T16:10:57.889-07:002011-08-23T16:10:57.889-07:00I've been tempted by voice recognition. My opt...I've been tempted by voice recognition. My options right now are to run NaturallySpeaking inside a Windows VM, or wait until Dragon releases a Mac product with feature/price parity. I don't see either of these happening soon.. :(Nobodyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13128758853001011657noreply@blogger.com