Category Archives: programming

Unfinished Projects: One last programming lesson from my dad

Posted on December 16, 2015 by

Last night I got to hold a fresh copy of the first book I’ve ever written. It was an amazingly satisfying experience. As many authors will attest, the journey from submitting a proposal to holding the finished book was much … Continue reading →

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The CyberConstitution Class

Posted on October 9, 2014 by

Each fall I teach an Introduction to Programming class, and it’s always fascinating to see the connections students make as they experience their first real exposure to programming. Today I introduced the concept of classes, and we ended up in … Continue reading →

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Processing a long list efficiently in Python

Posted on April 12, 2014 by

This post was inspired by Brandon Rhodes‘ excellent talk at Pycon 2014,  All Your Ducks In A Row: Data Structures in the Standard Library and Beyond. Python’s lists are dynamic.  You do not need to declare their length ahead of … Continue reading →

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Ninety Days on Github

Posted on December 8, 2013 by

Ninety days ago, I unknowingly started my first real Github streak. I didn’t really decide to start a streak until I was about 17 days in, but since then I’ve been very conscious to keep it going. I’ve thought about … Continue reading →

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Github streak days 31-60: What I’ve learned

Posted on November 8, 2013 by

About two months ago I started writing some lessons for an Introduction to Programming class I was about to teach. I was using IPython Notebook to write those lessons, so I decided to put the notebooks on GitHub. I worked … Continue reading →

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What I’ve learned from my first 30-day GitHub streak

Posted on October 9, 2013 by

Today marks the end of my first 30-day streak of making contributions on GitHub. I had no intentions of starting a streak, but now that I’ve got one going, it’s addictive. More importantly, I find I am learning a great … Continue reading →

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How IPython Notebook and Github have changed the way I teach Python

Posted on September 22, 2013 by

I teach in a small high school in southeast Alaska, and each year I teach an Introduction to Programming class. I recently learned how to use IPython Notebook, and it has completely changed the way I teach my classes. There … Continue reading →

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Intro to Programming, Fall 2013

Posted on September 11, 2013 by

This page includes some links we are using in Introduction to Programming (using Python), for fall 2013. The index page for class lessons is here. From that page, you can get to any of our class lessons. We are writing … Continue reading →

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Cleaning up a code directory

Posted on June 21, 2013 by

I am configuring a new laptop, and I want to do it a little more cleanly than my last few migrations to a new machine. Rather than simply copying over all my files, I am being quite selective. As I … Continue reading →

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Gittip is About People, not Products

Posted on June 13, 2013 by

Why “Distributed Genius Grants” is the perfect tagline for Gittip In case you haven’t heard, Gittip is a crowdfunding platform that allows you to make anonymous, recurring donations to people whose work you value. The tagline for Gittip recently changed from … Continue reading →

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