I don't agree - imho a good design is art - so I indeed confirm with Don Knuth: The art of programming ...

Ohne Syntax keine Literalität - ohne Konzepte keine Lösungen. Allerdings bringt allein syntaktisches Wissen, also nur Literalität keine eigenständigen Lösungen hervor, dazu bedarf es der Kenntnis grundlegender Konzepte.

I keep advocating that one must understand the programming concepts while learning a programming language, and not just be keen about the syntax. And it is not very convincing, especially because there are not visible benefits. Most of the times only the short term benefits are visible, the long term ones are either too far away or we do not have the vision at all. So, here is one of the analogies I try to provide for making it more comprehensible. Difference between knowing programming and knowing syntax is the same as between being educated and being literate. You can very well read and write the text with the language you learnt by being just literate. But you need to be educated to inform yourselves with it and apply it to make a difference in your life. Learning only the syntax is like trying to be just literate. I find a lot of novices in a position where they find it hard to understand design, but once a pseudo algorithm is given, they can translate it into a programming language. When you are just literate, you can only write what others dictate. Of course you cannot code without knowing the syntax, but what guides your code is not the language syntax but the programming concepts and the language philosophy. Even if it is more difficult, and you cannot see the immediate benefits, it is better to educate yourself than just being literate.

Und wann endlich ... in NW ... in BRD?

Einen Monat nach der Verkündung des Aktionsplans der niederländischen Regierung, nach dem alle Behörden zu offenen Standards und Open Source migrieren müssen, planen das Patentamt und die Wettbewerbsbehörde bereits die Umstellung.

Da grüß' ich mal als brave man zurück ;-)

I have just attended my first Grace Hopper conference organized by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. The conference sold out with over 1400 people attending. There were a few brave men at the conference but the vast majority of the attendees were women (they even changed some of the men's bathrooms into women's bathrooms). It was amazing and exciting to see so many technical women in a variety of shapes, colors, ages, and backgrounds. I was impressed with the energy, enthusiasm, and depth of knowledge.

The keynote speaker was Donna Dubinsky who is the founder of a new company Numenta that is trying to design a computer system that reasons using a model based on the neocortex of the brain. She was also president and CEO of Palm and had also co-founded Handspring.

Jeannette M. Wing from Carnegie Mellon University gave a very interesting speech about some of the great open questions in computer science such as, 'What is computable?' and 'What is intelligence?' I was standing behind Turing Award winner Fran Allen in line for drinks and got to ask her, 'what attracted her to her career in computer science at IBM'. She said that she had big student loans and needed the money!

One of the interesting comments I heard was from a student who said that she was surprised at the number of older women at the conference. Many of the students didn't know who Grace Hopper or Anita Borg were. I had an interesting talk with Kathryn Kleiman about a documentary that she is working on about the female programmers of the ENIAC and how they have never really gotten credit for their work. You can learn more about the female programmers of the ENIAC at www.eniacprogrammers.org.

There is a documentary fundraiser on Thursday, November 8th 2007 from 6pm ? 9pm, at the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California. Tickets are $100.00 each and you can register at www.google.com/events/eniac.

Everyone has heard of Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs but very few people know about the important contributions of women in computer science. We need to do a better job of recognizing the contributions of women in computing and in educating both men and women about the role women have played in computing!

For more information on Grace Hopper see http://gracehopper.org/2007/about/grace-hopper/.
For more information on Anita Borg see http://anitaborg.org/about/history/anita-borg/.
For more information on the ENIAC programmers see http:// www.eniacprogrammers.org.

Barb Eriscon
CSTA Certification Chair