Ich halte aus anderen Gründen Java für ungeeignet ;-) Aus didakitschen Gründen ist Python nun mal besser geeignet, um die informatische Bildung zu befördern.

There has been quite a bit of discussion about the article by Dewar and Schonberg
http://www.stsc.hill.af.mil/CrossTalk/2008/01/0801DewarSchonberg.html »The Pitfalls of Java as a First Programming Language«
claiming that:
'It is our view that Computer Science (CS) education is neglecting basic skills, in particular in the areas of programming and formal methods. We consider that the general adoption of Java as a first programming language is in part responsible for this decline.'
In http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/career/article.php/3722876 Dewar clarifies that it isn't Java that he blames so much as the 'use of the Java's graphical libraries lets students cobble together code without understanding the underlying source code.'
The only evidence of these claims is that they see a decrease in performance in their systems and architecture classes.
[...]
Good software engineers need to know how to reuse existing classes and how to design classes that can be reused. Why should students have to build their own graphics primitives instead of using the Java graphics classes? What learning do they miss out on by not doing this?
[...]
Dewar in particular claims that the introductory curriculum has been 'dumbed down' to make it more fun and appealing. Again, what evidence does he give for this claim? He says that students are not learning formal methods for proving program correctness, but my understanding is that this field which was popular in the 80s has not had much success. [Warum?] He also claims that students don't have enough knowledge of floating point computation. Again, what proof does he give for the need for this? Students certainly need to be aware of the problems with floating point computation, but very few will go on to do mission critical low-level work.
Our research on learning computing in a context whether it be Media Computation, Matlab, or robotics has shown that it does improve student success and retention. We also have the evidence to back this up, not just at Georgia Tech, but at several other universities and colleges. Just because you make something fun or interesting doesn't mean you have 'dumbed it down' or that students aren't learning what they need to in order to be successful in a career in computing.
Barb Ericson
CSTA Teacher Educaiton Representative

[ Datum/Zeit: ] Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:06:53 -0500
http://blog.acm.org/csta/index.xml [ Verweis - Nachrichtenkanal ]

http://blog.acm.org/archives/csta/2008/01/clarifying_the.html [ Verweis - Eintrag ]

TIOBE Software: TIOBE declares Python as programming language of 2007! ['Python has been declared as programming language of 2007. It was a close finish, but in the end Python appeared to have the largest increase in ratings in one year time (2.04%). There is no clear reason why Python made this huge jump in 2007. Last month Python surpassed Perl for the first time in history, which is an indication that Python has become the 'de facto' glue language at system level. It is especially beloved by system administrators and build managers. Chances are high that Python's star will rise further in 2008, thanks to the upcoming release of Python 3.']

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 13:09:00 -0000
http://www.pythonware.com/daily/rss2.xml [ Verweis - Nachrichtenkanal ]

http://www.pythonware.com/daily/#entry5225373455879067975 [ Verweis - Eintrag ]

Nach meiner unmaßgeblichen Meinung sollte Typographie im Informatikunterricht thematisiert werden, da wir die Mittel kennen und einsetzen, mit denen typographisch hervorragende Ergebnisse erzielt werden. Diese Mittel sind von Informatikern zur Verfügung gestellt worden und sollten breiten Einsatz für die Gestaltung von Dokumenten in der Schule finden. Büropakete können in der beruflichen Bildung ihren Platz finden. Schülerinnen haben ein Anrecht darauf, die besten Werkzeuge kennen und schätzen zu lernen, die wir als Informatiker/innen einsetzen.

Typographie ist nicht nur etwas sehr schönes aber auch eine spannende Domäne -- ein geeignetes Hobby (zum kleinen Einstieg empfehle ich das folgende Buch: Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works) und etwas, was uns täglich antrifft. Natürlich auf Papier aber auch im Web.

Ja, im Web sind die Regeln nicht nur anders, aber die Möglichkeiten (lassen wir mal Sachen wie Flash weg) eingeschränkt. Aber nicht weniger spannend. Und hier eine unspektakuläre aber sehr praktische Site, welche eine Schriftenvergleich am Bildschirm einfach ermöglicht: http://typetester.maratz.com/.

2008-01-15T10:45:21Z

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[ Quelle: ]
Jürg Stuker
http://blog.namics.com/atom.xml [ Verweis - Nachrichtenkanal ]

http://blog.namics.com/2008/01/typographie_am.html [ Verweis - Eintrag ]

Bemerkenswert viele Pläne der britischen Regierung erinnern an Dystopien wie Demolition Man, V for Vendetta und Die Klapperschlange. Subkutane RFID-Chips für Straftäter sind hierfür nur ein Beispiel

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0000

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[ Quelle: ]
tpred@heise.de (Twister (Bettina Winsemann))
http://www.heise.de/tp/news.rdf [ Verweis - Nachrichtenkanal ]

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/27/27064/1.html [ Verweis - Eintrag ]

Dies könnte in dem übernächsten Seminartermin durchaus berücksichtigt ;-)

Lawrence Lessig zählt zu Recht zu einem der Überväter der Netzkultur, der unter anderem treibende...

[ Datum/Zeit: ] Wed, 16 Jan 2008 12:37:13 +0100

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[ Quelle: ]
korrupt@gulli.com
http://rss.gulli.com/gullifeed.xml [ Verweis - Nachrichtenkanal ]

http://feeds.gulli.com/~r/gulli/~3/217588815/ [ Verweis - Eintrag ]

http://images.zeit.de/text/2008/04/Mobiles-Internet ein ausgezeichneter Hintergrundbericht, der zeigt, dass es hier durchaus um etws anderes gehen könnte, als viele vermuten.
Dennoch: meine Solidarität gilt den Kolleginnen und Kollegen bei Nokia in Bochum.

Nokia schließt sein Bochumer Werk. Dahinter steht ein großer Kampf: Handyhersteller, Software-Firmen und Mobilfunker ringen um die Vormacht im mobilen Internet

[ Datum/Zeit: ] http://newsfeed.zeit.de/ [ Verweis - Nachrichtenkanal ]

http://www.zeit.de/2008/04/Mobiles-Internet?from=rss [ Verweis - Eintrag ]

The package below has been installed at tug.ctan.org 
and should soon be at your favorite mirror. 
Regards, Jim Hefferon Saint Michael's College 
........................................................................... 
The following information was provided by our fellow contributor: 
Name of contribution: FastPicTeX 
Author's name: Harald M. Stauss 
Location on CTAN: /support/fastpictex 
Summary description: A preprocessor for PiCTeX 
License type: gpl 
Announcement text: 
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FastPicTeX is a preprocessor for PiCTeX that takes very easy to 
write macros and converts them to PiCTeX code that can be included 
in LaTeX documents. 
FastPicTeX is specifically designed for diagrams of numbered data 
material, such as line graphs, bar graphs, or xy graphs. 
A detailed manual for FastPicTeX is included as PDF. 
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This package is located at 
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2008-01-15T13:12:38

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CTAN Announcements
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The package below has been installed at tug.ctan.org and should 
soon be at your favorite mirror. 
Thank you, Jim Hefferon Saint Michael's College 
....................................................................... 
The following information was provided by our fellow contributor: 
Name of contribution: TeXcount 
Author's name: Einar Andreas Rødland 
Location on CTAN: /support/texcount 
Summary description: Perl script counting words in LaTeX documents 
License type: lppl 
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TeXcount.pl is a Perl script that counts the number of words in 
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common macros and provieds colour coded output indicating which 
parts have been counted. Go to 
http://folk.uio.no/einarro/Comp/texwordcount.html
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2008-01-12T12:06:07

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