Rolandt

Wer gestern fix war und sich eine Nespresso-Maschine für 50 Euro bestellt hat, der hat heute:

• Eine Nespresso Essenza Mini zum halben Preis
• Einen Gutschein über 10 Euro
• Einen weiteren Gutschein über 40 Euro
• 14 Kapseln mit den verschiedenen Kaffee-Sorten

So weit sind wir also schon mal im Plus. Dazu vielleicht noch ein Probierset von Jacobs?

This morning I read Against Software Development, which considers two tragedies of software development and a moral exhortation. One of the tragedies:

Software grows until it exceeds our capacity to understand it.

This observation reminds me of the Peter Principle from business management, which points out that people in a business are promoted until to they reach a level at which they are incompetent. Success in the hierarchy ends when people find that their skills no longer match the needs of their job.

We see something similar in software. We write a program to solve a problem. At this point, we understand the program completely so, when we see an opportunity for a new feature, we extend it. We still understand the system, so we add a bit more complexity, either implementing a new subtask or elaborating an existing feature with more detail. This process keeps happening until... we don't understand the program any more. Or, more likely, we understand it at a macro level but no longer grok all of the interconnections and dependencies among components. The result is Peter-like: the program stops growing. The root cause is not the incompetence of developers, but a fear born out complexity.

Having a system under a comprehensive set of tests can help stave off this fear. With careful attention, some time, and energy, we can use refactoring can sometimes reverse the entropy that sets in over time. But often the practicalities of organizations leave us with a big piece of software that we don't really understand, a system that can't grow or be changed to fit the evolving context in which it operates.

Many companies then find themselves in an odd situation: ossifying the organization's processes and procedures in order to stay in conformance with a piece of software its developers no long understand. Software rigidity becomes organizational rigidity.

Stay vigilant! With good development practices, perhaps you can push the point of no understanding farther into the future. But be ready for the day. It will probably arrive, sooner or later.

If you wander around the options of the Datawrapper scatterplot tool, you might find it: The feature that enables you to make art. It’s hidden in the Visualize step, at the very end of the Annotate tab. The title won’t give anything away. “Add custom lines and areas” it calls itself.

And then it warns you: “experimental”.

But once you start to trust it, it becomes a friend. It reveals itself as a treasure trove of possibilities. You can create lines. And rectangles. And yes, that’s all there is. But then, doesn’t that cover half of what modern art is about?

First, the possibilities will bring you joy. Then they will overwhelm. You’ll start with trial and error; with just dabbling around. At some point, your art will become deliberate. You’ll use the limitations of the tool (a charting tool, after all) to get creative. You’ll create kitsch. You’ll create glitches. You’ll create beauty for the masses, and beauty that won’t work for anyone but you.

And at some point, maybe, you’ll write a Weekly Chart about it.

Learn how the “Add custom lines and areas” tool works in this Academy article. To create three of these four “charts”, I used trigonometric functions like y = cos(x*3)*sin(x) in a scatterplot with turned-off grid lines and axes. Hover over the image and click “Edit this chart” to see how it works. Also, try to resize your browser window in case you’re not on a mobile device: The charts will change a bit according to their width. And if you like this kind of art, check out sinxcosx.tumblr.com. It’s a Tumblr I created 1.5 years ago, with more trigonometric art. I’ll see you next week!

It’s tempting to use mutable state in your algorithm. It’s so convenient! And we’re so used to it, if we come from an imperative paradigm. But we must remember that there is always a way, even if it’s not immediately obvious. I go over two ways to implement an algorithm without mutable state.

Transcript

Eric Normand: Is there always a way to design and implement an algorithm without mutation? Hi, my name is Eric Normand. These are my thoughts on functional programming.

I’ve seen this before where there’s some algorithm that seems like, “No, this one just needs mutation.” That’s the whole point of it is that things change over time. We need to have mutation.

I always challenge that because once you let in mutation, it’s really hard to get rid of it. It’s really hard to make it functional on top of that. Unimpossible, but if you’ve got mutation in the core of your abstraction, it’s really hard.

You get all the problems of mutation, and then you’re not using functional programming anymore. You’re just all doing actions. Reading and writing from a mutable thing. The thing is it is always possible.

We know this theoretically, mathematically proven that it is possible to convert any Turing machine into a lambda calculus representation. You could consider the Turing machine the immutable version of algorithm.

If you’re using mutation, you’re in that side, you’re in that camp. Then the immutable more functional version is the lambda calculus. We know that they’re equivalent. Anything you can calculate with the Turing machine, you can calculate with lambda calculus.

The question then is about how to do it. I do think the first step is believing it can be done. If you’ve already made the decision that it has to [inaudible 2:28] be with mutation, you’ve lost the battle. Your mind is not going to go there and even look for the solution without mutation.

I think that is always the first step, it’s just trust that there is a way to do it and that you can find it. That’s the mental part of it. When we’re making transitions from one paradigm to another, that’s the kind of leap of faith you have to make.

Eric Normand

@ericnormand

Trust that you can write an algorithm without mutation. When we’re making transitions from one paradigm to another, that’s the kind of leap of faith you have to make.

ed.gr/6797

Fri Dec 28 16:00:50 +0000 2018

13

You’ll eventually get used to thinking in the functional paradigm, and it won’t be a leap anymore. You’ll know that it will be possible. The second thing is you need to think of two…There’s two different approaches when you’ve got a problem like this, where you think, “I need mutation.” The first is, can you pass this state around? Meaning, it’s not mutable values.

The current state is passed in as an argument, and the next state is returned as the return value. Then you just thread it through. There’s always a possibility. You’re not mutating anything. You’re threading stuff through.

Then you can take a step back and you say, “Well, I actually am not threading any functions through. I have something else that’s threading that value through different functions, so I could have it in a loop,” for instance.

The current state is stored in the local variable in the loop, and then you recur. You do a loop recur. The recursion, if you’re not using Clojure, if it’s just standard recursion, you change the value of that as you recurse.

You’re not changing anything. That function is calling itself with the next value. That’s the same thing as threading. It’s just happening on the outside.

The other thing is often what people use mutable state for or shared mutable state is, a decision in this part of the code is going to affect this part of the code. I could say something like, “I’m gonna set an option here in this part of the code, and that’s going to make this thing, which isn’t running yet, do something else.”

A simple example is if you’ve got a wizard, a step-by-step process, and the first step gets presented to the user. They make some options. They say, “I want to file my taxes jointly with my spouse.” You click that.

Then the next step is going to change based on what you chose in that step. We’re going to give you this workflow, because you said you want to file jointly. It seems like I’m making a decision here. I’m setting an option. It’s mutable. Now, that is going to change what happens next.

That other screen is going to have to read that value, which just got set, and change the UI for that. Here’s the thing, you could potentially solve that with threading the value through, but you could also do it where…Let me back up.

Because you’re threading, the challenge though is that the decision has to be reified. This is that second technique that I’m trying to get at. If you have an if statement, when I click this button that says, “I wanna file jointly,” I could think of it as, “OK. Now, that means the next step needs to be…”

I have an if statement that says, if it’s jointly, set the next step to the jointly workflow. If it’s single, the [inaudible 7:35] branch set it to the single workflow. It seems mutable. You’re making a decision here. The if statement, you’re making it here, and it’s going to affect something over here.

If you reify that decision, that if statement, into a function so the function takes the value that you’re threading through, that function can return the next step. This is a pure function. It’s a calculation.

It takes the current state which contains the option that you set that got threaded through, so no mutation. It makes a decision. What is the next step to show? It’s that same if statement, but you’ve wrapped it in a function. Now it’s a thing that you can put for the next step.

You could have a kind of step in your workflow that is a decision step that has this function that determines the actual next step. You have regular steps and then these decision steps. That’s two cases.

If you do that, you’re still functional. You have not had any mutation in there. You’re still doing all calculations but you’ve still solved the problem of having this piece of the code or some decision on this side affecting decision. You just moved the decision, reified it up, and you’re good.

These are two techniques that happen. Here’s the thing about threading state. If you’re into this, threading state is a pattern. In a language like Haskell, they would call that the state monad.

That state gets threaded through for you as part of the binding rules for the monad. If you bind two state monad values together, this one can change the state, and then this one can read it. It can read that change.

Any monad or any other values that come after it can read the state, because it’s basically just threading. You could do it by hand. You don’t have to have a type class system to do that. You could do it by hand, and I’ve done that before. Just think of threading a state through.

This decision thing is just normal for first class. You don’t have an if statement in a first class if statement. Many languages don’t. JavaScript doesn’t. Clojure doesn’t. Does Haskell? Maybe it does. I don’t know. I don’t think it does. If it does, great, use it. If not, you can make it. It’s really easy.

It’s a function that takes a Boolean and it returns either the second argument or the third argument. You can make one that’s more tailored just for this decision that you’re making, which is to take the current state.

Have an if statement in there that determines which one to do, and it just does whatever you’re supposed to do to make a step happen. There you go. You’ve reified it.

That was this thought. I’ve encountered that before where people give up and say, “This has to be mutable. We’re changing things. The workflow changes as you make decisions.” It does not have to be that way.

My name is Eric Normand. This has been my thought on functional programming. If you’ve had an algorithm that you’ve had trouble making functional, please get in touch with me. I’d love to see it. I’d love to help you out with it. Maybe there’s something else to glean from it.

I’ve broke this down into two little microskills you need to use to try out how to do this. There could be more skills to use that you would need. I’d love to see some examples to expand this out.

When I have these thoughts, they’re really just all about finding other people who could use these thoughts, helping others, getting in touch with people who are also doing the same thing, trying to make functional programming more practical, more accessible to people.

If you’re one of those people, if you got a question, if you want to just get in touch, you can find me on LinkedIn, just search for Eric Normand and Clojure. I’m the first one. I should be. You can also get in touch with me on Twitter, I’m @ericnormand, and via email at eric@lispcast.com.

See you later.

The post Is there always a way to implement an algorithm without mutable state? appeared first on LispCast.

I have three PhD students right in their second year, plus I informally mentor other 3. I love mentoring and supervising students, particularly doctoral ones, because this component of being a professor is really the one that allows you to build how other scholars think and you can see them flourish. All doctoral students I mentor are parents, a fact that also brings along specific challenges, as I try to be a supportive supervisor. Two of my current PhD students are undertaking Doctor of Philosophy degrees, and one of them is undertaking a Doctor of Business Administration, which is a slightly different kind of degree. At any rate, because they are all in their second year, they all have come to me with very important questions about where their dissertations should go, how to build their research questions and how to come up with their contribution to the literature and the “gap in scholarship” they are filling. But these contributions need to be VERY CLEARLY STATED in the dissertation, and at the doctoral defense.

I am flabbergasted that not one, not two, but MANY doctoral dissertations I've read for external examination fail to CLEARLY EXPLAIN the theoretical and empirical contributions of the thesis, as well as the gap in the literature they fill. WHO advised you, people? Jesus. FAIL.

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) November 18, 2018

As I said on Twitter (you can read the rest of my Twitter thread by clicking anywhere on the tweet shown) there are core elements to the doctor of philosophy degree that have been agreed upon collectively. For me (and for a lot of other doctoral advisors) a PhD dissertation is an original contribution to knowledge (which can be theoretical, empirical or both) which fills a void (or a gap) in the literature on a particular topic. While moving across disciplines could possibly mean that said gap may not actually exist (and therefore, a dissertation could very well be creating a new area of scholarship and understanding), for the most part, particularly in disciplinary settings, a PhD dissertation fills a gap. Something wasn’t known, well understood or read about Phenomenon X in this particularly novel way, and therefore this dissertation fills a gap in the literature. I really like how Tierney Wisniewski put it:

I am really curious about how the two of you define "gap." I suspect a lot of us frame finding gaps as opening up space for ourselves that no one has claimed before, not adding some mortar to strengthen a crumbling edifice.

— barefootwriter, MA (@bfwriter) November 20, 2018

I also agree with Susan Porter and Lisa Young: “The core of the PhD continues to be the development of the ability to do independent, rigorous research, as documented in the dissertation.”

Finding a gap in the literature signals originality. PhDs are supposed to make an original contribution. That’s the crux of the degree. Academic, social impact, interestingness, all are added bonuses. Of course I would like my doctoral students to do interesting, scholarly robust and impactful research. And obviously I want my students to undertake topics that are interesting TO THEM (I don’t care if the topic isn’t interesting to me, it’s not MY PhD dissertation!) But the core of the dissertation research is, whether people like it or not, or agree or disagree with it, an original contribution to collective knowledge, which is signaled by showcasing a gap in the literature that the dissertation fills.

SO HOW DO YOU FIND A GAP IN THE LITERATURE AND HOW DO YOU ENSURE THAT YOUR DOCTORAL DISSERTATION IS NOVEL?

I've written two posts to guide doctoral students (mine and everyone else's) https://t.co/GfcLAHLQlR on finding gaps in the literature, and on the key elements PhD candidates should have mastered by the time their viva approaches https://t.co/M6W84kxkec precisely because of this.

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) November 18, 2018

My recommendation to my students always is to READ AND MASTER THE LITERATURE VERY WELL. Read broadly, read deeply, engage with the literature. Also, don’t expect that your doctoral dissertation will have all these grand innovations. We all contribute to scientific and human knowledge incrementally.

As an external examiner, you leave me with the really unpleasant task of having to explain to your PhD student that, actually, had they done their literature review properly, they'd know their NEW theoretical framework had been published by Scholar X, Y and Z in years 2011, 2014.

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) November 18, 2018

Failure to do this kind of clear articulation is not the student’s fault. Students are developing their knowledge of the literature, and more importantly, they’re still in the process of learning how to conduct independent research. In my view, this failure to clearly articulate a doctoral dissertation contributions is a supervisory issue.

As an advisor, I think it is my job to ensure that my students survey the literature well, that they conduct their empirical research with ethics and integrity and proper research design, and that their writing reflects a contribution to the literature, in a very clear way.

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) November 18, 2018

So, how do I prefer that my own students write their doctoral dissertations? I like them to be able to very clearly articulate the following:

Paragraph 1: PUZZLE – What drove you to study what you studied? Paragraph 2: RESEARCH QUESTION AND METHODOLOGY YOU USED TO ANSWER IT Paragraph 3: CONTRIBUTIONS – What do we learn from your doctoral dissertation. Paragraph 4: CAVEATS AND BOUNDARIES OF YOUR WORK. Then, go on…

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) November 18, 2018

I am grateful for people’s articulations of these thoughts as well, because I think we all collectively develop how we deal with doctoral research in different ways.

This need was something I noticed as a graduate student, especially during talks. Two other grad students and I wrote an article with a series of questions to get students thinking about how to do this. Specific to ecology, but relevant to any discipline https://t.co/OJCE9bXycl https://t.co/chyLSjWDJd

— Dr. Chelse Prather (@Chelse_Prather) November 20, 2018

Ultimately, my goal is to guide my PhD students to complete their dissertations on time, doing important, interesting and innovative research in a way that is both fulfilling and scholarly rigorous. All these blog posts are inspired by the numerous failures in supervision that I’ve witnessed through the year. I don’t want my own students to go through the hell that I’ve seen others go through. A PhD (and any scholarly degree) should not be painful. It should be challenging but not torture. And on this very topic, PLEASE read Katie Wedemeyer-Strombel’s excellent post in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Sun. 11.18.18 – Yes, I am back in London to write. I find that I write best here, for a number of reasons both known and rather mysterious to me. When I am home in California, I can muster 2000-4000 words per month, hardly words enough to finish a short story in reasonable time –... Read more »

Mon 11.19.18 – Photo of the London bus traveling down an illuminated Regent Street was taken by Ms. Jen with her camera phone this evening while walking down Oxford Street.

The International Examiner has a three-part series on the gentrification of Chinatowns in cities in the Northwest, and Chetanya Robinson has interviewed our very own Duke of  Data Andy Yan.

It is well worth a read, as is the International Examiner’s review of “People Power” and the landmark decision of the Vancouver Development Permit Board regarding 105 Keefer, a condominium development proposed within Chinatown.

“Over the last few years, much of Vancouver, B.C.’s Chinatown has mobilized against gentrification, insisting that development and revitalization projects do more to meet the needs of the neighborhood. In November 2017, a swell of neighborhood voices made history by convincing the Vancouver City Development Permit Board to reject the application for a proposed condo project, called 105 Keefer. It was the first time in its history that the Board rejected a project, agreeing with activists that the condo didn’t fit contextually into Chinatown. For many, the 105 Keefer project — which would have been built just feet away from a memorial to Chinese railway workers and veterans, and included no affordable housing — symbolized the ways that housing was being developed in Chinatown with little regard for its needs.”

Andy Yan who is the  director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University notes that 40 % of seniors in Chinatown live in poverty, and that the activism against inappropriate development is a ‘microcosm” of what is happening throughout the city.

Andy points out  As Vancouver changes and grows, who is the city really for? “All my research is in how do we make a more inclusive city. That’s the core of it.” 

Andy also draws the parallel that Chinatown redefined Vancouver as one of the few cities in North America that is not car dependent, a direction that was kindled with Chinatown and Strathcona’s rejection of the freeway through it in the early 1970’s. In talking about Chinatown and the trend to “placemake” to attract people and businesses, Andy points out that is already done. In talking about “this idea of place-making — which is the obsession for urbanists, urban planners, urban designers — isn’t relevant in Chinatown, because the place has already been made. And I think that what’s actually key, and requires the changes in development”.

Unlike other areas that might require a business development rethink of industries and opportunities, the existing population of Chinatown and their future is similar to what other areas of Vancouver are reflecting. With 50% of Chinatown’s population below the poverty level the importance of connection with economic opportunities and fostering neighbourhood is important.

As Andy Yan observes I think it goes in towards culture. Like, how does Chinatown fit in towards how the city and region have changed, particularly with the different types of Chinese immigration? The original Chinese population that founded Vancouver’s Chinatown were working, middle class folks at the most, compared to really the sizable class changes of those who are now coming here as new immigrants. But then also those who are second and third generations. How do they feel connected or not connected with the neighborhood?

The importance of thinking of Chinatown as a people based place with strong social infrastructure is something that Andy Yan finds striking about Chinatown.

“Whether it’s social, cultural institutions, clubs – it means really memories – the idea of history. The fact that this is not an instant neighborhood, it’s actually one that has a patina of cultural practice, of cultural institutions, which has kind of created this neighborhood, unlike many, many other neighborhoods in the city of Vancouver.”

Andy Yan notes that while Chinatown may be lacking in financial capital, in terms of cultural and social capital “this is one of the richest neighbourhoods in the city of Vancouver”.  And what happens in one of the most historic and culturally rich neighbourhoods of the city could be a blueprint for “building bridges and extending the table” for socially responsible development that fits into the desires and needs of the community.

You can read the whole interview here.

Images: SFU & New1130

While quick to say that people who pay for expensive homes with  all cash offers in the millions and who hide their identities behind numbered companies might not be committing fraud, King County wants to know the real names of who is buying real estate, and where that money came from.

King County surrounding  Seattle is now enacting a U.S. Treasury Department edict requiring the identities of all home buyers to be revealed to law enforcement officials if a house purchase costs $300,000 or more.

How many houses are purchased through shell companies?

In King County ten percent of houses are purchased this way. The Federal Treasury Department already requires Manhattan and Miami to reveal  the real names of people  buying homes, and now counties including Seattle, Boston, Dallas, Honolulu and Las Vegas are required to do so as well.

As the Seattle Times observed “The reason is to root out criminals laundering money through home purchases. For example, someone could steal some money, buy a home with it, and then sell the home, and voilà – the proceeds from the sale can be put into a regular bank account. That type of criminal activity doesn’t get as many headlines here as it does in places like Manhattan and Miami (or in nearby Vancouver, B.C.), but the Seattle area remains among the most lucrative real estate markets in the country – a potentially attractive place for criminals to park their money.”

The approach appears to be effective-so called “secret buyers” vanished from the Miami market. However housing prices remained stable, suggesting that shell company buyers were simply using “straw buyers” or  mortgaging a small portion of the housing price to duck oversight.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s edict is subject only to single family houses and does not apply to commercial real estate, residential apartment or office buildings.

A YouTube video below shows purchases of real estate in New York City by secret buyers. In 2014  63% of purchases over five million dollars were transacted with shell companies or secret buyers.

Over half a million Android users inadvertently downloaded malware from the Google Play Store.

According to a tweet from ESET security researcher Lukas Stefanko, 13 apps from a developer named Luiz Pinto saw more than 560,000 downloads combined.

The 13 apps, disguised as various car and truck games, would crash on launch and install an additional APK and hide it from the user by deleting the app icon.

App functionality demonstration pic.twitter.com/11HskeD56S

— Lukas Stefanko (@LukasStefanko) November 19, 2018

Before Google removed the apps, two made it to the Play Store’s Trending page.

According to TechCrunch, malware scanners can’t agree on what the malware does. However, the installed malware is persistent, launching every time the Android device boots up.

Additionally, the malware reportedly has “full access” to a device’s network traffic, meaning the malware creator could steal data communicated to and from the internet.

Last year, Google said it pulled 700,000 malicious apps from the Play Store, but it’s clear these apps continue to be one of the biggest threats to Android security.

Source: Twitter Via: The Next Web, TechCrunch

The post Google removed 13 malicious apps with 560,000 combined downloads appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Came across this excellent article today on U.S. museums that add information about slavery and enslaved people to their exhibits.

Can Art Museums Help Illuminate Early American Connections To Slavery?

Silly but clear headline (the answer is “yes, of course”).

For these particular portraits of people from 1700s Massachusetts, there is presumably whatever info was there before on a placard next to the painting, and there is a new placard outlining the person’s connection to slavery, including the names of the enslaved people whose labor enriched themselves and their family.

I like this approach to history. Who is missing? Who is not seen, heard from? Who has disappeared from the picture and why?

Add in another layer, of the indigenous people of that part of Massachusetts, and their lives at the time of these portraits.

An interesting book is mentioned in the article, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave in the Building of a Nation by Daina Ramey Berry. I may give that a read.

Over the last few days, there has been an interesting Twitter thread on the challenges of getting CS instructors to adopt the results of CS education research. Actually, it started as a thread and grew into a tree... Here's a reasonable jumping-in spot if you'd like to explore.

I imagine that it's hard to get research results into the classroom in a lot of disciplines. Research can be abstract and is usually out of context for any given school. But even when research groups implement curricula and train teachers, it can be hard to spread practices that we know work well.

The answer educators give for not adopting research results often boils down to, "It's complicated." Schools are different; students are different; the end goals are different. Indeed, the original Twitter thread spawned a student diversity conversation that picked up when the energy of the original topic waned. This tweet is a nice anchor for that conversation:

Majors vs. non-majors. Undergrads vs. high school vs. elementary school. Adult software developers vs end-user programmers vs conversational programmers. Different goals: authenticity, security, software engineering, algorithmic thinking, practice production. No one way.

All of these distinctions are real. I've seen several of them affect how we teach introductory programming at my school. And let's be honest: when we talk about research in CS education, we are often talking almost exclusively about teaching programming. How we teach intro programming can, though, have a big effect on student performance in later courses.

But even in the face of these different dimensions, I still wonder why more of us don't incorporate more research results into our teaching. I have a few ideas borne out of my years as a faculty member.

I think a big part of the effect that students have on whether faculty adopt new pedagogical approaches comes an angle not mentioned in that list: competitive pressure. Departments fear that if they adopt an unusual curriculum or an unusual first language, they will lose students. These fears manifest themselves if you propose to teach a relatively ordinary language such as Ada; they grow quickly if your approach uses an esoteric parentheses language (EPL). Parents of HS students will say, "Your competitors don't use EPL or your unusual pedagogical approach. They teach Good Old-Fashioned CS, the way it's always been, a way that's proven to get graduates jobs. Why shouldn't we send our daughters and sons to another school?"

HS students and their parents do ask questions such as these, and it takes a lot of perseverance to respond over and over. Only the most committed believers can stay the course. Unfortnately, it can take a few years for the benefits of a new approach to show up in upper division courses, let alone in the performance of graduates. New curricula rarely have that much time to succeed. If the department's faculty aren't all fully committed to an approach, then as soon as enrollments dip a bit, they join the chorus. There's a scapegoat ready at hand.

Even if we step back from the competitive disadvantage angle, we can see a similar phenomenon at play. The tweet quoted above list many different kinds of learners. These distinctions can serve as a handy reason for faculty not to change when faced with CS ed research that may only apply to one student population or one context. And resistance to change is a strong force.

Speaking as a long-time professor, I think the most powerful forces against change arise not on the student side of the equation but on the teachers'. Learning a bunch of new techniques, integrating them into a coherent curriculum, and then mastering them is hard. It takes time profs don't always have a lot of. When they do have some time, reading and applying CS ed research pulls them away from their own research or even away from the things they like to do in the classroom.

Personal confession time. This all reminds me of a conversation I had with Mike Clancy many years ago. He was part of the team that developed the idea of using case studies to teach programming. I've always admired the approach and thought the intro textbook he and Marcia Linn built around it was pretty cool. When I told Mike this, he asked, "Well then, why aren't you using them? Why aren't you writing case studies of your own?" These were great questions that took me aback. My answers sound like the excuses I've talked about in this post... My colleagues were skeptical of the approach and preferred other textbooks; convincing them to change would require a lot of work and political capital. Writing case studies is hard work, and at the time I was more excited to work on my own somewhat-related ideas. "Soon", I said. But soon never came.

I sit here still admiring case studies -- and worked examples, and Parsons problems, and the design recipe, and How to Design Programs. I've incorporated the idea of design recipes into my Programming Languages course, but I haven't fully committed to it yet. The others? They are still dreams. (I did try my first Parsons problem this semester: an assembly language program in my compilers course. I liked the result and think I'll try more next semester when I teach my students functional programming in Racket.)

Am I slow to adopt evidence-backed pedagogy? Lazy? Short on time? I don't know, but I suspect that there are many reasons. Change is hard. I do hope that I haven't done my students too much disservice in the meantime.

At one point in the Twitter conversation that launched this post, someone wrote something to the effect, "convincing researchers is easier than convincing practitioners". But that brings to mind another question: Why aren't all CS ed researchers advocating the use of worked examples? Design recipe and HTDP-style curricula? Parsons problems? Why aren't more CS ed researchers using them in their own classrooms? Maybe they are and I haven't been paying attention. If that's so, then I doubt that many other CS profs know about this widespread adoption of advances among CS ed researchers either.

Some disciplines, such as physics, seem to have developed more of a culture for incorporating education research into the classroom than computer science. Can we change that? If so, I think there is room for the CS ed research community to lead the way. But... it's complicated.

Photo by Evan Dennis on Unsplash

That question popped into my inbox(es) today, from my former colleague John Robertson and his colleague Cindy, who are teaching a course called Digital Literacy and Life.   John and Cindy wrote:

As we’ve prepared for this course, we’ve been struck by the wide variety of definitions of digital literacy. It’s perhaps not surprising that there are different answers to this question and every answer we’ve found has limits and challenges. We want to try to introduce our students to the richness of the question, ask how this plays out in all of life, and help them work out their own definitions. . . .

Answer by email, Google form, link a blog post, a link to something else you’ve written, a video, a soundbite, or whatever you would like. We’ll create a post for each response. We hope to have responses by the first week of January but will post on the blog in small groups as we get them.

• What is digital literacy?

• What impact does digital literacy have on your personal, professional, and spiritual* life? [*However you interpret this.]

• Who are you? (context matters)

• License – our intent is to post responses to this on a wordpress site for our course to explore. We’re asking for permission to publish or link to it there (with Copyright remaining yours). If this is something that y’all think would be of wider use we can looking into pulling this into a pressbooks site as some form of open text. If you want to give us text with an open license we’ll record that accordingly.

So here is my attempt to answer these not so simple questions.

1 – What is digital literacy.

I tend now to talk and think more in terms of digital capabilities, as I think it provides a more accurate description of all the “stuff” in my life intertwined with digital literacy.  The Jisc definition is my go to one:  “the capabilities which fit someone for living, learning and working in a digital society” 

2 – What impact does digital literacy have on your personal, professional, and spiritual life?

Well this is quite a broad and deep question, so I’ll probably only be able to come up with something narrow and superficial   For me I think the initial impact has been driven by my professional practice.  Working within an educational technology context, my interactions with technology have been professionally driven. That goes for my growing interest in digital literacy in general too.

I still see Information Literacy  as an overarching lens to think about digital literacy, and increasingly all the other digital stuff. (Shameless plug, this is explored more in a forthcoming book I’ve written with Keith Smyth and Bill Johnston).  I’ve always been more curious and concerned around why people want to use technology and for what purposes.  Just now it is more important than ever that people understanding the cost/benefits of using technology particularly in relation to use of data.

Of course over the past decade and probably more, digital stuff, in particular social media has become more infused with my non work life . The boundaries have been blurry around where “professional” Sheila exits and how much “real” Sheila is shared. I regularly reflect and blog about this blurry-ness and my evolving relationship with my online presence.  I feel quite lucky that I have to understand what my friends/family often refer to as “techy stuff”.  I am aware of the potential impact of what I put online and I also know where to find stuff and find out about stuff.

My own digital literacy and digital capabilities are constantly evolving.  I do get concerned when there are conversations around digital literacy training. To my mind that implies that you trained at a functional level to do something and then that’s it, the evolving literacy/capability is forgotten.  A key role for any educator is around criticality, and we need to ensure we are providing our students, staff opportunities to question the use of technology.  Technology is not a neutral. We should always be asking, who owns the technology, what are their drivers/political contexts (again something we explore in much more detail in the book).  The serendipity of twitter threw this on my timeline this morning and I think it encapsulates why digital literacy is so important.

I don’t know if there is a spiritual part to my life. I’m not religious, however I hope I have a sense of morality that allows me to respect everyone and everything on the planet.  However there are moments that I want to capture and share with, well anyone.  Mainly these are photos/images – a l cloud, a flower. some chalk marks on a wall . . .  These are moments of peace, joy, wonder and the odd WTF in the world around me.   I also know when to let go and I am comfortable being off line and don’t feel the need to try and keep up with everything. If something is important it will find me one way or another.

3 –  Who are you?

Now that is quite a big question!  But for the purpose of this blog, I am currently a Senior Lecturer in Digital Learning at Glasgow Caledonian University.  I am part of the Academic Development team so my work is primarily around staff development and support in academic development.

Now that the election season is over and politicians are doing what they promised (that’s way more common than you think), the vagueness of well-intentioned promise is being replaced by the unintentioned exposure of decision.  Kickback is filling up my inbox, as illustrated by some selected items from just this morning.

UDI comes out shooting on vacancy controls:

BUILDERS WARN MORE RENT CONTROLS COULD PUT THOUSANDS OF NEW RENTAL HOMES AT RISK

A new Urban Development Institute survey of 30 rental builders finds that 12,631 rental homes which are currently planned for communities across B.C., will be at significant risk if restrictive policies are imposed. This number represents nearly two-thirds of the 19,972 rental homes that respondents reported are currently in development. …

Vacancy control would tie rent controls to a unit rather than the tenant. Currently, rental owners have the flexibility to adjust rents between tenants to account for building and unit upgrades and other increased costs like property taxes, insurance and utilities. Vacancy control would remove this ability. If rent is tied to the unit, the incentive for a rental owner to ensure necessary upgrades, including seismic and energy efficiency standards are completed to aging buildings, is severely compromised. …

In recent years, Seattle has built a surplus of rental homes which drove up overall vacancy rates from 6 percent a year ago to 7.5 percent now and decreased monthly rents, with many tenant incentives.

Click here to download a high resolution version of the infographic.

Speaking of Seattle, Sightline just credited their home city with a big urbanism win in their Daily:

3. Seattle is proving, again, that urbanization works

Even more than Vancouver has within its region, Seattle has embraced urbanization like no other city in its metro area and no other big city in the country.

(Seattle) opened its riches to 114,000 more residents since 2010 by adding 53,000 more homes. More than almost anywhere in the modern North American West, it’s built those homes in the center of the city, not in sprawling exurbs. Thanks in part to falling parking requirements, those homes have been disproportionately built along transit lines. …

Seattle’s construction boom is paying off in ways tenants and homebuyers can actually feel. Not only have home prices stopped rising despite continuing job and income growth, they’ve now dipped $80,000 from their peak as vacancy rates and unsold inventory finally rise. Average rents are flat to down as landlords of older buildings try to prevent tenants from grabbing bargains in new, higher-end buildings.

 

All the more irony, then, when you see what Sightline credited as their second huge urbanism win:

2. Vancouver, BC, just re-legalized duplexes citywide

In September, Vancouver … ended the failed experiment of banning duplexes from most of the city. Almost every residential lot in Vancouver can now have two full-size homes. It’s the first city in the US or Canada to make the change …  Watch our site over the next year for more coverage of Vancouver’s work to end exclusionary zoning.

Oh, we’ll be watching.  Given that the one of the first motions put forward by an NPA Councillor was to re-ban the ban.

That’s not quite as ironic (I’m being polite) as the action taken in the District of North Vancouver to deep-six an affordable housing project, currently lighting up some Slack and Twitter streams, with this connection to the North Shore News:

District of North Vancouver Couns. Lisa Muri, Betty Forbes, Megan Curren and Jim Hanson and Mayor Mike Little all believe we need affordable housing. Throughout the campaign they told us, repeatedly, that North Van has too much market housing and not enough affordable housing.

But when it came to their very first vote on an all-below-market housing project in Delbrook, Monday, they all said, “No.”

The reasons given for preventing 80 working people, families and seniors from having safe, secure, affordable homes to live in, was that it was too tall, too dense, that the unit mix was wrong, that it had too little parking and wasn’t designed to the highest environmental standards. Mostly though, it was to mollify the very comfortably housed neighbours in Delbrook.

I’m anticipating that those councillors and mayors who have sent a signal opposed to ‘density’ will run for cover by supporting an extended planning process, with the (futile) hope that conflicts will be resolved by everyone sitting down together to reach consensus.

Missing ethical compass. Completely broken.

Is there any doubt that Zuckerberg and Sandberg both knew and signed off on this? And then blatantly lied.

Partial truths, spun, denial, repeat. Facebook is ethically bankrupt. https://t.co/CyTkj2mi0a

— John MacFarlane (@JohnLMacFarlane) November 21, 2018

John tought me years ago why I should stay away from Facebook and its ventures. And as the events unfold he is proven right time and again. The company culture is poisened from the top.

I was in Madrid on invitation by Samsung to catch up on their B2B offerings and came back quite impressed, both from visiting Madrid as well as some of the information I learned today.

Madrid was simply fantastic. Since I had to stay overnight, I flew in at noon yesterday and explored the city by walking around in the afternoon. Instead of calling a taxi I bought a two day tourist ticket for public transporation at the airport. 14,20 € covered all train and bus rides as well as the airport access fees and the cost of the smart card you need to ride the Metro. Highly recommended. Buy this before you take the elevator down into the station. This is a modern underground train system, clean and efficient, with easily understood signage. I never felt lost.

Last night we had dinner at the Restaurante Sal Negra which gets a ★★★★★ recommendation from me. We started at 8 in the evening when the restaurant was completely empty, and stayed until 11 when it was packed.

Today's event saw a couple of good speakers, starting off with Prof. Nick Bostrom from Oxford University speaking about AI, Joeng Wook Tak, VP B2B Enterprise Business Team, Thomas Riedel, Head of Samsung Networks Europe, and Nick Dawson, who spoke about Samsung's KNOX portfolio.

I already knew most of the things that Samsung presented at the event, but I got a better sense of how seriously Samsung is venturing into the enterprise market. The company is traditionally strong in the consumer market, but they are talking to business and government customers to meet their specific needs like long term software updates, long sales cycles, and have developed some unique capabilities, for instance the management of firmware releases across all devices within an enterprise. It's called E-FOTA (Enterprise Firmware Over The Air) and it enables you to standardize your devices on a tested firmware release that does not have to be the latest available.

I also saw an interesting device for the public sector like police forces or emergency service that combines a Walkie Talkie over LTE with a regular smartphone, all with a brighter flashlight and a louder speaker, in a ruggedized package. Ruggedized Android devices is a growth market and Samsung is also looking at devices for retail that combine a barcode scanner, a credit card reader, and a walkie-talkie to build something that could replace multiple devices used in retail.

Since Samsung can build their own devices from silicon to the display in their own factory and have invested in a secure software stack over many years, they can now claim to have one of the most secure architectures, especially since BlackBerry has folded their smartphone operations. They still have their secure network which is an important asset, but on the device side, Samsung has won. And I see no (Android) competitor challeging them in this market. Apple is strong in the enterprise market, but they don't have the same breadth of offering as Samsung. This won't be the last time I will be looking at Samsung in a business context.

How did I not notice this URL before, an homage to one of the great television characters of all time.

O’Reilly Radar is now O’Reilly Ideas, which is way, way less fun.

Rainier is the app, and Ballard is the language. It’s named for the neighborhood where I live in Seattle. (Using Pacific Northwest names is what I do now.)

Ballard has a fresh GitHub repository. It’s a separate framework, since I want to use it in NetNewsWire, and because I want to make it so other people can use it in their apps if they want to.

Another goal: the code should be understandable and tinker-able. The idea is to create a language where the implementation is not mysterious, where it’s accessible to even new programmers who are willing to put in some effort.

So I’m writing in Swift, at the highest level I can, and I’m writing blog posts which explain things.

Four Pieces

The language implementation will have four main parts:

• Tokenizer: takes a string of code and breaks it into tokens. A token is a small structure that specifies things like: this is an identifier, and its name is whatever. Or this is an if keyword. Or this is a + sign. Etc.
• Parser: turns the tokens into a tree of nodes that can be evaluated.
• Evaluator: runs the script — that is, it evaluates the tree of nodes created by the parser.
• Standard library: the set of commands — we call them verbs — that are built in to the language. These are for things like operating on strings, files, dates, and so on. This also includes some constants for things like the maximum value of an integer.

Makes sense, no?

Where I’m At

On the weekend I got far enough with the tokenizer — named Tokenizer — that I could start writing tests for it.

The tokenizer is probably the least interesting part of all of this, and I don’t think I need to write much to explain it.

The gist of it is that it goes through the string by calling popNextToken() to create an array of tokens until it reaches the end of the string. It will throw an error if it encounters something it can’t handle.

Which should be super-rare, because the tokenizer does not do much in the way of syntax checking. The tokenizer should be able to handle stuff that is entirely incorrect code.

Checking syntax is the job of the parser. The tokenizer just performs that initial pass that gives the parser something besides raw text to work with.

So, next step: write more tests for the tokenizer, fix any bugs, and then move on to the parser.

The parser will be more challenging, for sure. The evaluator, too — especially since it needs to be able to handle debugging, which means being able to pause, view the variables in the stack, resume, etc.

But one thing at a time: the tokenizer comes first.

Is there an App Store for Saudi Arabia? I don’t personally have any apps on the App Store — but if I did I’d make them unavailable there.

It’s totally a-okay for businesses and individuals to impose our own sanctions. We should, in fact.

PT commenter Geof put up a response to this post that’s worthy of bringing forward – mainly because he nails an issue that isn’t getting enough attention: what will happen to our streets if we priorize the needs of autonomous vehicles.

I have said before that I don’t think self-driving cars will work in mixed urban traffic unless roads and rules are changed to keep pedestrians, cyclists, and so forth out of the way. There has already been a proposal that pedestrians should be required to wear beacons to avoid being killed by self-driving cars.

I am certain that if the AIs are actually safe, pedestrians and others (call them “road trolls”, even though I would consider them heroes) will fool them, slowing them down substantially, leading right back to separate ’em, tag ’em, or ban ’em policies aimed at everyone not encased in a tonne of steel.

Woz doesn’t buy the hype either:

‘It may only be one man’s hot take on the issue but Steve is a tech icon and likely someone others will listen to, despite his not being an expert on autonomous systems. . . .  the brunt of Wozniak’s ire seemed to be targeted at Tesla’s AV program. “Tesla makes so many mistakes,” he said. “It really convinces me that auto piloting and auto steering car driving itself is not going to happen.”’

I do think that self-driving vehicles will do fine on segregated highways, despite their current habit of accelerating into stopped vehicles. Self-driving BRT might be possible too. I don’t think making trucks and buses more like trains is the revolution people are anticipating.

Instagram is taking a page from Twitter and testing a new profile design that de-emphasizes follower counts.

The company said in a post on its press site that it will experiment with the arrangement of features at the top of the profile over the next several weeks.

Along with shrinking follower counts, the ‘Follow’ and ‘Message’ buttons shifted to the bottom of the bio. Users can also view a list of mutual followers by tapping on the follower tab.

Further, the grid, posts and tagged photos icons are written out, and IGTV might get its own tab.

The redesign brings some new business accounts, including a ‘Shop’ tab, and buttons like ‘Directions,’ ‘Call’ and ‘Start Order.’

Instagram says it plans to work on these changes and test them in phases and different combinations over the next several weeks. Further, the company says it will update the experiences based on user feedback.

Source: Instagram Via: The Verge

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Google released an exciting update for its Assistant iOS app today, bringing support for Siri shortcuts and, for the first time, opening lines of communication between the two competing assistants.

Siri and the Google Assistant have historically been unable to work together in any way, but thanks to the opening up of Siri via shortcuts in iOS 12, that changes now. With the latest update, you can set up a shortcut in iOS to immediately, via Siri, trigger any command you'd like to give Google's Assistant.

The shortcut you'll want to set up immediately for the Assistant is one that simply launches the app and triggers its voice recognition. This shortcut will be available to set up as a suggestion in Settings, and if you'd like consistency with other Google devices, you can make your custom trigger phrase something like 'OK Google' or 'Hey Google.' That way, when you say the phrase via Siri the Assistant will launch and immediately start listening for your command – there's no extra step needed after triggering the Assistant via Siri, the app just opens and starts listening. I will note, however, that you can't run an Assistant-based shortcut while your device is locked.

Beyond setting up a standard shortcut for triggering the Assistant, Google's app seems to donate every single command you give the Assistant as a shortcut option inside iOS' Settings. Because of this, for all requests you regularly make of the Assistant, you can set up individual shortcuts for each one, complete with their own custom trigger phrases. The limitation of needing your device unlocked means these shortcuts can't ever run in the background, but besides that drawback, the possibilities for integrating the Assistant with Siri are extremely broad now.

Google unfortunately hasn't built any sort of settings screen into the Assistant app for getting started with shortcuts, but since every recent command you've made is available from Settings ⇾ Assistant ⇾ Siri & Search ⇾ Shortcuts, it's not a huge problem for those who know what they're doing.

Google Assistant's adoption of Siri shortcuts is simply the latest evidence of what we already knew: that shortcuts is a game changer for Siri. No, shortcuts don't solve problems with the reliability of Apple's assistant, but it's pretty remarkable that I can now set up custom Siri phrases that trigger Google's own Assistant, and even specific Assistant requests. Maybe some day the app will be able to process those requests in the background, but for now at least, I'm content with what we have here.

Google Assistant is available on the App Store.

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The Samsung Galaxy S10 rumour mill keeps turning and a new rumour from SamMobile suggests that the upcoming Galaxy flagship will feature a ceramic back in black and white colour variants.

At this point, SamMobile is unclear which model might feature this material, though the Netherlands-based publication suggests that the larger 6.7-inch S10 with six cameras will sport the ceramic backing.

Ceramic material on smartphones isn’t new, however, as OnePlus, Essential and Xiaomi have all used the material on their devices.

Ceramic should make the upcoming S10 difficult to scratch, while also helping give the device a more premium look-and-feel.

Rumours recently suggested that Samsung would launch a Galaxy S10 variant with a 6.7-inch display, two front-facing selfie shooters, four rear-facing cameras, and a 5G-capable modem. This model would, reportedly, launch at the end of Q1 2019 or early Q2 2019, after the launch of three other S10 handsets.

Source: SamMobile

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This report (64 page PDF) examines practice-informed learning, defined as "encompassing any situations where expertise from industry is brought into the classroom to inform teaching practice, or where more hands-on learning is taken out into professional settings." It offers a quick overview, notes benefits to students ("up-to-date understanding of their chosen field", "opportunities to begin to develop professional networks"), then offers the 19 case studies that constitute the bulk of the report. The 'dual professional' referenced in the title is the "practitioner-teacher" who keeps a hand in both industry and education. Via WonkHE.

Watching Infinity War I found myself rooting for Thanos against the superheroes trying to stop him. Sure, he was trying to wipe out half the universe, but this paled against the wanton violence of the superheroes. Statistics back me up. "According to a new study, the 'good guys' are actually significantly more violent than the antagonists they're trying to stop." I'm certainly left wondering about their priorities and their methods when I watch a superhero movie. Why is the instinct always to resolve differences by fighting? How is it that superior strength always defines what's right? Why do they use their powers for combat rather than humanitarian purposes? If media either reflects or informs cultural values, then the recent slew of such movies must leave us wondering.

ESA Blog: 20 questions for 20 years: Happy Birthday International Space Station. “This week we celebrate 20 years since the first International Space Station module Zarya was launched into space on 20 November, 1998. To mark the occasion, we are answering 20 of your most frequently asked questions about Alexander Gerst’s time on board the orbital outpost. Read on to be enlightened…”

“Is there gravity in space?
[…]
In truth, astronauts are not floating, they’re ‘falling’. But because of the high speed of the Space Station’s orbit, they fall ‘around’ Earth – matching the way Earth’s surface curves. The moon stays in orbit around Earth for this same reason. Since astronauts have the same acceleration as the Space Station, they appear and feel weightless.”

The B.C. government outlined a plan today to make all cars and light-duty trucks sold in the province emissions-free since 2014.

NDP premier John Horgan announced that in a joint effort with the B.C. Green caucus, the province will introduce legislation next spring to add sales targets for zero-emission vehicles (ZEV).

The targets are for the amount of ZEVs sold in the province and the first one begins at 10 percent. The province aims to hit its targets by 2025. Five years later, it wants to be at 30 percent and then a full 100 percent by 2040.

“There’s nothing more important than taking care of the place we call home. As a province, we need to work together to put B.C. on a path that powers our future with clean, renewable energy and reduces air pollution,” reads a statement from premier Hogan in the province’s November 20th, 2018 press release.

To make these targets more obtainable, the government is planning to help make typically expensive ZEVs like Teslas more affordable.

There are three other steps outlined in the plan to help B.C. reach its goal. The government wants to expand on its direct-current fast charging network from 71 to 151 stations. It plans to do this by using federal funds and using money from the private sector.

Step two involves increasing the provincial incentive program by $20 million to make the total amount of money in the program $57 million to help persuade more Canadians in B.C. to buy zero-emission vehicles.

The final step is to review the incentive program and find better ways to get middle and lower-income B.C. residents behind the wheel of an electric vehicle.

Source: The Government of British Columbia

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