On Tuesday, I told the lab of first years I TA that they were going to test their code. Then one of them started asking me about a quiz. Erm? No clue. So I said, no we’re going to test your code. And he talks about a quiz some more. It’s all very confusing, but […]
Category: Programming
On Tuesday, I went to an event at The Code Factory. Michelle Gauthier spoke for CapCHI on “User-Centered Design: A Cultural Challenge” (full details). I found it fascinating. I’ve been thinking about programming as a force for good a lot lately so it was great to hear an example about that. The talk was about […]
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Why Women are Better Programmers
From Programmers Need To Learn Statistics Or I Will Kill Them All “I think women are better programmers because they have less ego and are typically more interested in the gear rather than the pissing contest.” Love it! And I totally want to learn stats now, too.
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Processing Jam: Tuesday January 5th
I’ll be getting together with a couple of friends JP and Dwayne for a “Processing Jam” on Tuesday January 5th, at 6pm. What’s a Processing Jam? We’re going to make stuff. With Processing. Why? Because that list of projects in our head that we’ll “do some day, when we have time” is never going to […]
Should I switch to mac? Is it hard to get used to? Yes, switching to Mac was the best thing I ever did and does wonders for my productivity. I have found it much easier to develop on Macs than on Windows. Are there places children shouldn’t go on the internet? I think this question […]
Here’s the slidedeck! Because I’m presenting in French I’ve kept text to a minimum: Art, Life and Programming View more documents from Cate Huston. Posts with detailed notes about what I’ll be covering and the videos (which won’t work from Slideshare – boo!): Part 1: Introduction Part 2: Art Part 3: Life Part 4: Programming
Earlier, we talked about how programmers weren’t perhaps what you expect. Code isn’t either. Programmers used to program using series of 1’s and 0’s punched into cards (crikey!) but that’s not the case any more. Program code has got more and more high level, and some languages are actually quite readable by humans! Some programming […]
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Delegating
As a student, you don’t really learn how to delegate. It’s one of those crucial life skills that doesn’t seem to make it onto the curriculum, and when we think about it – how would it? There are opportunities, but you have to go out and find them. Volunteer to team lead on a group […]
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Duck Typing Applied to People
The other day, my boyfriend and I have a conversation along the lines of the following: Boyf: Why does X keep talking about how she’s a cricketer*? Me: I know, she’s never even thrown a cricket ball. Boyf: Seriously? Then she’s not a cricketer. Me: She self-identifies as a cricketer, I guess she is. Boyf: […]
I see this problem continually in the first years I TA – they’re so overwhelmed by syntax they don’t know how to start to write the program. VB (in Excel) is especially mean about this, as if a line of code won’t compile it won’t let you go to the next one. So, having given […]