Category: Opinion
Why choose Python for teaching?
| May 7, 2012 | Posted by Karl Beecher under General software engineering, Opinion |
I recently read a tweet by a computer science educator claiming the superiority of a particular programming language for teaching purposes (Pascal, if you must know). Now, I don’t really go for religious wars — each to his own and all that — but I did reply with my opinion that Python might generally be… read more
The Oddity of the Pre-facto Quotation
| October 6, 2010 | Posted by Karl Beecher under Off-topic, Opinion |
I spend less time than ever these days reading about politics, not that I ever had a great interest to begin with, but I happen across the odd news report from Blighty now and again, just to stay knowledgeable throughout my exile from the Kingdom. I don’t know quite how long this particularly oddity that… read more
Should Educators Use More Visualisations?
| September 13, 2010 | Posted by Karl Beecher under Opinion |
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Not so many years ago, I was one of the people in the education system, spending much of the working day being lectured to. Being a geek, most of my subjects involved mathematical, scientific or computing related material, which is often complex and requires (from me at least) intense objective mental effort to understand them,… read more
SourceForge Gives Me a Morality Poser
| July 8, 2010 | Posted by Karl Beecher under Opinion |
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As an administrator on a SourceForge-based project, I was recently sent this email by SourceForge (SF): SourceForge has project settings to help you comply with regulations governing distribution of software to persons from certain countries (aka Export Controls). We’ve had some recent questions about these settings, so have sent out this note to all administrators… read more
You can read, peruse, or scan this post
| June 21, 2010 | Posted by Karl Beecher under Opinion |
There’s a little oddity on the GNOME desktop, which you might notice when you unmount a USB device. When you right-click on the USB icon and move the pointer to the relevant option, you’re faced with this: I can either unmount the drive, eject it, or safely remove it. Huh? What questions would go through… read more
The Never-Ending Story
| March 31, 2010 | Posted by Karl Beecher under News, Opinion |
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SCO Group’s assault on (among many things) the Linux kernel, has officially been put out of its long-standing misery. SCO does not own the Unix copyrights that it alleged, without any base, were infringed by Linux; most observers have already long since known this. As I learn this, I realise now that have been laughing… read more
The Alan Turing Apology — Why?
| September 7, 2009 | Posted by Karl Beecher under News, Opinion |
Not so long ago, we celebrated the posthumous birthday of Alan Turing, who has achieved heroic status in the computing field. He made critical contributions to algorithms, computation, computer design and artificial intelligence, and famously played a role in the efforts to break the German codes during the Second World War. However, his story does… read more
A Review of "Inside the Anthill: Open Source Means Business"
| June 3, 2009 | Posted by Karl Beecher under Opinion |
A recent radio broadcast on BBC Radio 4 (your grandmother’s favourite radio station) entitled “Inside the Anthill: Open Source Means Business” was advertised as “Gerry Northam goes behind the scenes to investigate ‘open source’ computer software“. (Spot the irony in going “behind the scenes” to investigate something that is done openly and transparently.) But let… read more
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