[Edu-sig] teaching Python etc.

Tue Jul 25 12:11:25 EDT 2017

On Tue, Jul 25, 2017 at 11:03 AM, Wes Turner <wes.turner at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Monday, July 24, 2017, kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> I turned down a $600/day 3 day gig I might not have got anyway, because
>> the textbook goes twelve chapters with no 'class' keyword, and that would
>> define the full complement of our topics. My code of conduct forbids
>> teaching Python that way.
>>
>
> +1.
> - "Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!"
> - Classes are dicts with MRO. https://en.wikipedia.org/
> wiki/C3_linearization#Example_demonstrated_in_Python
>
>
>> The whole point of OOP was here's a way we think in natural language:
>> about Things with properties and behaviors.
>>
>
> Maybe 'classes and instance of classes'. class Book(object): pass;
> book_instance = Book()
>
>
>>   Maybe some people don't like to be "objectified" and it's true, that
>> can mean something bad, but in the context of the Django ORM, it means an
>> integrated object has the records.
>>
>
> ActiveRecord and DataMapper are both popular ORM patterns.
>
> From https://wrdrd.github.io/docs/consulting/knowledge-
> engineering#object-relational-mapping :
>
> Object Relational Mapping⬅
> Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-relational_mapping
> - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_mapper_pattern
> - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_record_pattern
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-relational_impedance_mismatch
> - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_object-relational_mapping_software
>
>
>
>> The patient, the athlete, the student object, comes with a medical
>> history.  Lots of SQL behind the scenes.
>>
>
> Medical history as a schema / informatics example and Python:
> - GNUhealth
>   - (an actual application (with an install procedure and/or just Docker)
> with example/test data)  - https://en.wikibooks.org/
> wiki/GNU_Health/Different_ways_to_test_GNU_Health#
> Option_4:_Run_GNU_Health_from_Docker_.28Lightweight_Containers.29
>   - https://hub.docker.com/r/mbsolutions/postgres-gnuhealth/~/dockerfile/
>
>   - https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GNU_Health/The_Demo_database
>     - https://hg.savannah.gnu.org/hgweb/health/file/tip/tryton/
> backend/fhir/server/fhir/patient.py
>       - lots of XML (which can be digitally signed)
>       - lots of boilerplate
>       - (this is in the the server API)
>
> Normalization to records (rows) with fields (columns) and keys (identity)
> AND/OR
> Denormalization to composed, often nested, signable records (See: JSONLD,
> ld-signatures, blockcerts)
>
>
>> Rollicking good debate over on math-teach as we exult over the huge
>> numbers turning out to take AP CS.[1]  The Learn to Code movement is
>> succeeding, has gained traction.  The Coding with Kids that I work for has
>> likewise spread to several more cities, and any successful business model
>> attracts imitators (CwK has a great website for faculty, lets us track
>> everything, including our hours).  Is code school the new high school?
>>
>> https://medium.com/@kirbyurner/the-plight-of-high-school-mat
>> h-teachers-c0faf0a6efe6
>> (an essay coming up on its first anniversary)
>>
>> The $600/day gig was teaching adults (andragogy vs pedagogy), over the
>> wire, which is how I've been making ends meet.
>>
>> Unfortunately for me, a truck pulled up across the street and started
>> moving wires from pole A (the old one) to pole B (the new one) and wouldn't
>> ya know, my Internet, which goes right through there, cut out.
>>
>> The crew said "not us" (what are the chances?) and took off.  CenturyLink
>> is coming tomorrow, but will they have a long enough ladder?  I've gotta do
>> my wind-up session 10 of 10 for the Californians.  Patrick offered me his
>> office (Comcast). I'm tethered to Internet through my cell phone as I write
>> this (not enough bandwidth for live screen and audio though).
>>
>
>> We introduce Python classes early because that's the promise of OOP.
>>
>
> We could start with
>
>   import unittest
>   class Shape():
>   class Square():
>   class Rectangle():
>   class Triangle():
>   # def area(*args, **kwargs):
>   # def circumference(*args, **kwargs):
>
> ... https://westurner.github.io/2016/10/17/teaching-test-
> driven-development-first.html
>
>
>> To sucker for that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" thesis, that we
>> need to slog through a whole semester of procedural programming, before we
>> make a single instance of something, is impossible in practice, at least in
>> Python, as just about everything one touches is an instance of something.
>> This textbook seems to hearken from that era (fortunately receding in the
>> rear view mirror).
>>
>> You'd think in Java at least it'd be classes right out of the gate as one
>> can't but extend a class to get anything done.
>>
>> Python's the same way of course; I think of functions as another type,
>> canned (built-in), with their own syntax, but an instance of the
>> FunctionType nonetheless.
>>
>
> FunctionType type annotation:
> https://github.com/python/typeshed/blob/1e04a8c1b8b2c7a1fc3d9fcfbc2d3d
> 8ba2dc933a/stdlib/3/types.pyi#L25
>
>
>>
>> Out here in Code School world, the pressure is on to teach Python in two
>> main ways:  as a web development language, using projects like Flask and
>> Django, and as a Data Science tool, using pandas, numpy, Jupyter Notebooks
>> and mathplotlib -- but then when it comes to visualization tools, there's a
>> plethora of 2D options.  Great talk on this at Pycon2017.
>>
>
> Mayavi (VTK), Blender
>
>
>> I've always been more a 3D guy myself, writing to POV-Ray and later
>> Visual Python.  I had a good experience getting vpython over anaconda and
>> embedding same in a Notebook, but that was a while ago.  No one pays me for
>> 3D stuff.
>>
>
> http://holoviews.org/ (Bokeh, Matplotlib, Plotly)
>
>
>>
>> Maybe we should learn to do stats that way, using more 3D models than we
>> do.  Fly through.
>>
>
> We manage to understand so much about data through 2D (+time)
> visualizations that don't have 3D camera and viewport parameters to just
> reset to the best view.
>
> That said, these 3Blue1Brown professionally animated math videos are
> outstanding (and sponsored!):
> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw
>
>
>>
>> Not just physics should have all the fun.  As it is it seems precious few
>> physics teachers take the "coding a physics engine" approach.  Maybe
>> Carnegie Mellon?  I'm far from omniscient.
>>
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity#
> Relationship_with_quantum_theory
>
> - /search computational physics and python
> - /search physics simulation and python
>
> - http://vpython.org/
> - https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/physics/
>
> - Are there other good tools in {Python,} for evaluating complex systems
> at a point in time? (I think we've had a similar discussion in the past.)
>

A moving object with a headlight is traveling at velocity v. Is it v+c, or
just c? #DefiningTheProblem #LIGO

>
>
>> Hey, TinkerCAD is loads of fun for simulating an Arduino, a great sandbox
>> if you don't have all the components.  I've made some screencasts showing
>> that. [2]
>>
>
> Recently, I learned about LeoCAD (because LEGOs and a bricklayer.org
> presentation):
> https://github.com/westurner/wiki/wiki/bricklayer#
> bricklayer-jupyter-extension
>
>
>>
>> The Learn to Code movement is having a big impact, to summarize.
>>
>
> "Nine Policy Ideas to Make Computer Science Fundamental to K-12 Education"
> https://code.org/files/Making_CS_Fundamental.pdf
>
>
>>
>> Kirby
>>
>
>
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