> But you are totally right, Kirby - we've got to get him off of this notion of > variables as containers. "Post-its, not buckets" is the way I put it, but I > rather like the luggage tag metaphor as well.
You lost me here. What's wrong with bucket? On Sat, Jun 2, 2018 at 3:25 PM, Naomi Ceder <naomi.ce...@gmail.com> wrote: > It is a lovely article. Andrew Smith was at PyCon and I had dinner with him > and Nicholas one evening and also sat down and chatted with Andrew on a > couple of other occasions. > > He's a smart guy and a likable one, and he is very taken with coding in > general, Python in particular, and especially the Python community, and he > plans to keep going beyond just that article. I fully expect we'll see and > hear more of Andrew Smith's adventures with Python over the coming year or > two. > > But you are totally right, Kirby - we've got to get him off of this notion > of variables as containers. "Post-its, not buckets" is the way I put it, but > I rather like the luggage tag metaphor as well. > > And for those of us who are geeks "of a certain age" I can also recommend > his book Moondust, which is the story of him tracking down and talking to > all of the surviving Apollo astronauts in the early 2000's. > > Cheers, > Naomi > > On Sat, 2 Jun 2018 at 15:13, kirby urner <kirby.ur...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> >> >> One of my screen scraper friends (always reading) just forwarded this >> link: >> >> https://www.1843magazine.com/features/code-to-joy >> >> A highly literate middle aged writer tackles programming from zero and >> winds up in Python after a pilgrimmage through Javascript, and uses the >> Twitter API. He meditates on what learning to code might mean to a fully >> developed adult such as himself (connects to Andragogy **). >> >> Nicholas Tollervey, sometime edu-sig poster and Micro:bit avatar, is very >> much a hero in this story, living up to the ideal of a Pythonista as >> >> (A) not religiously dogmatic (re "language wars") yet >> (B) having enthusiasm for sharing Python (without too much proselytizing). >> >> Bravo on a stellar performance! >> >> Quincy Larson of freeCodeCamp fame is another champion of openness and >> accessibility (and good advice). I get his emails in my inbox with >> gratitude, though I don't follow all the links (helpfully labeled with >> estimated reading times, for my internal scheduler -- thanks for the >> meta-data!). >> >> In the interests of sparking some edu-sig type discussion (this could fork >> to a new thread), the author Andrew Smith writes: >> >> "Variables are best (if imperfectly) understood as the vessels within >> which pieces of data are contained, ready to be worked on. Of many possible >> data types, the most straightforward are numbers and strings, string being >> the name given to text." >> >> In my classes I readily acknowledge the "variable as container" metaphor >> is apt, and agree that Python objects take up memory and so object == >> container (with id) is OK too. >> >> However, the name --> object mapping of a namespace is better imagined as >> "luggage tag -> suitcase" relationship. It's not like the Python name itself >> is the container on the heap. >> >> The object in memory is a possibly fat heavy suitcase, stuffed with stuff >> (e.g. an HttpResponse). However the name is more a label, like a luggage >> tag on a suitcase (and this is the point). >> >> Name : Object :: Luggage Tags :: Suitcase >> >> One suitcase (object) may have many names (connects to garbage collection >> discussion). However at any one moment, a name points to only one object >> (the same name in different modules, both running, still count as different >> names -- scope matters). >> >> So yeah, the object itself is a "container" but what it contains may be >> tags to other objects. >> >> Without this separation of "names" from "objects" there's an inevitable >> tendency to imagine copies, as how can we have two bowls or boxes with >> exactly the same content. >> >> We don't have a visual metaphor for "two suitcases containing exactly the >> same clothes at the same time". >> >> But we do understand "one suitcase having two or more luggage tags." >> >> Surely we have two copies, albeit clones of the same thing. Not so in >> Python though. Python is biased against making gratuitous copies of >> anything. Keep is spare! (sparse if possible). Don't clutter memory with >> excessive redundancy. >> >> >> Kirby >> >> ** >> http://4dsolutions.net/presentations/pycon2013.pdf >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Edu-sig mailing list >> Edu-sig@python.org >> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > > > > -- > Naomi Ceder > > @NaomiCeder • https://www.linkedin.com/in/naomiceder/ > https://www.manning.com/books/the-quick-python-book-third-edition > > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
