Cerstin Mahlow @CerstinMahlow@qoto.org

7/ For a long time, educators found curricula like SICP hard. (Now, they've just stopped talking about it.) This got translated to "Scheme is hard", because people can only see things through the overly simplistic lens of programming. But:

8/ What they missed is that SICP and other curricula, typically coming out of FP, had gone well past the "rubbing two rocks to get sparks" to the "igniting boosters" stage. It was blub all over again, at the level of curriculum, not language features. ↵

5/ The real problem in CS Ed is we don't think enough about how we can relax constraints, widen the space of methods, future-proof goals, etc. So we go from one blub language to another per decade: Pascal, C, C++, Java, Python…

6/ Here is my highly scientific visualization of the progress we've made in computing education. Whatever languages make easy become the default & determine lot other things. What languages make hard get ignored because folks are afraid to make CS hard for students. ↵

3/ Also, constraints. The constraints dictate what the admissible set of solutions is. Constraints vary across both space (different places) and time (different years). Without stating constraints, finding solutions is meaningless.

4/ Also, methods. Whereas, programming languages are a solution-space artifact. You don't *start* with them, you *end* with them, relative to everything else. So starting with the "which PL" question is guaranteed to lead to talking at cross-purposes. ↵

1/ "What programming language should I teach?" is the least productive question to ask in computing. There's a good reason: it's the wrong question to ask. The reason language wars feel pointless is that they're a symptom of this problem. Here's why:

2/ Curricula are never designed in isolation. All curricula, for anything, have to consider at least two things. First: goals. These include learning objectives, but often go farther (like "students must eventually get jobs"). ↵

Und wir lassen hier gleich mal die Sonne aufgehen - mit einem Livebild des Satelliten SDO.

3 … 2 … 1 … Und damit starten wir auch hier zu einer spannenden Reise durchs Weltall! Willkommen an Bord dieses als Mastodon-Account getarnten Raumschiffs!

Seit heute ist Igor Levit auch im #Fediverse bei #Mastodon @igorpianist
https://mastodon.world/@igorpianist

Two Documentaries Introduce Delia Derbyshire, the Pioneer in Electronic Music

https://www.openculture.com/2015/07/two-documentaries-introduce-delia-derbyshire-the-pioneer-in-electronic-music.html

Eine Flasche Humor (extra trocken, im Holzkopf gereift). Forschungslabor für Granatapfelkernspaltung. Trainingsplan „5 Minuten Kopfschütteln ohne Muskelkater – in nur 5 Tagen“. Erleuchtmittel für Kurzfassungen, 3 Stück 11,99. 6-gängiges Gourmet-Menno. Ein Flitzstift für Notizen in Lichtgeschwindigkeit.

#SechsUnmöglicheDinge

I’m building up my collection of Mastodon apps. So far, I haven’t found one that implements a Twitterrific-style “unified timeline” that shows (in Twitter parlance) tweets and retweets from people I follow *and* all my @-mentions in a single, reverse-chronological timeline. Does anyone know if this exists anywhere?

I wrote a piece for the New York Times about how scientists used Twitter during the Covid pandemic and about what comes next.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/opinion/pandemic-twitter.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

20,000+ followers here at #Mastodon after less than three days is a huge encouragement.

Thank you for welcoming us in #fediverse and for your incredible support. We need it. The #memory needs it.

#NeverForget #Auschwitz #history
@histodons

“This article processing charge is to cover the costs of peer review, copyediting, typesetting, long-term archiving, and journal management.”

OK, it’s good that MDPI explicitly say what the #APCs are (supposedly) needed for. However:

– #peerreview is done for free, only the *management* of the peer review is done by the #publisher.
– Copyediting? What copyediting?
– Typesetting? There are LaTeX and Word templates, the #typesetting is done by the authors, for free.
– Long-term archiving is done by the national library.

So, what remains is “journal management,” i.e., counting the money.

Introducing the first alpha release of Mastodon 3.11 for Workgroups!

Available for Windows 95

"Mastodon is just like email."
Like email? So I use Microsoft Outlook?
"Use WHAT"

(Tools -> Account Settings -> RSS Feeds -> New -> https://mastodon.social/@Gargron.rss)

24,932 accounts
+89 in the last day
+1,026 in the last week

Maybe you all know this already but twitter allowed academics who are otherwise marginalised by white, male hieracrchies to enjoy reach and visibility. (Yes, I count myself as a beneficiary here).

For many who have 'odd' names that don't get cited as much, or people who cannot travel to present talks easily, or are not invited as often or speak in unfamiliar accents, it was a chance to let their work and message speak for itself.

We'll need to reclaim that possibility for everyone. #Academic

https://de.statista.com/infografik/28776/geschaetzte-anzahl-der-von-twitter-beschaeftigten-arbeitnehmerinnen/ #riptwitter

Twitter fällt auseinander.

Ich groove mich so langsam ins #fediverse ein. Da ich hier immer wieder auch längere Videos posten möchte (ohne mastodon.social zu sehr zu belasten) und auch schon länger eine Alternative gesucht habe, um Videos (mit angepassten Qualitäten im mobilen Internet) auf einer Webseite einzubinden, habe ich für Paula & Konsorten jetzt eine #PeerTube-Instanz aufgesetzt. Die Sache ist natürlich noch im Aufbau, aber ihr könnt unter https://videos.diepaula.de schonmal reinschauen. 😘