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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