Re: Teaching Python

Date	2011-04-22 01:25 +0100
From	MRAB <python@mrabarnett.plus.com>
Subject	Re: Teaching Python
References	(3 earlier) <87d3kheqgs.fsf@benfinney.id.au> <iooa80$qc3$1@dough.gmane.org> <20110421135810.GA9878@Smoke> <4DB05734.8030200@mrabarnett.plus.com> <20110421223608.GB10971@Smoke>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.python
Message-ID	<mailman.724.1303431910.9059.python-list@python.org> (permalink)

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On 21/04/2011 23:36, Westley Martínez wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 05:11:32PM +0100, MRAB wrote:
>> On 21/04/2011 14:58, Westley Martínez wrote:
>>> On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 06:02:08AM +0200, Stefan Behnel wrote:
>>>> Ben Finney, 20.04.2011 02:06:
>>>>> Dan Stromberg writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 4:03 PM, geremy condra wrote:
>>>>>>> When you say 'hacking', you mean.... ?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Presumably he meant the real meaning of the word, not what the press
>>>>>> made up and ran with.
>>>>>
>>>>> To be fair, the press already had its own pejorative meaning of “hack”
>>>>> before the engineering and computing term
>>>>
>>>> Not anywhere outside of the English language that I'm aware of,
>>>> though. In German, it's a computing-only term that's used in both
>>>> contexts by those who understand why the pointer is moving over the
>>>> screen when moving the mouse, and almost exclusively in a bad
>>>> context by those who write news paper articles (and, consequently,
>>>> by those who innocently read them).
>>>>
>>>> Stefan
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>>>
>>> O Lord, I'd hope we'd be speaking for English here.  But really, hack
>>> has always been a negative term.  It's original definition is chopping,
>>> breaking down, kind of like chopping down the security on someone elses
>>> computer.  Now I don't know where the term originally came from, but the
>>> definition the media uses is quite a fair use.  Why should we call
>>> ourselves hackers anyways?  I don't smoke.  I'm no different from anyone
>>> else, I just happen to know a lot about computers.  Should we call
>>> people who know a lot about the economy hackers, too, or perhaps we
>>> should call them economists....
>>
>> As I understand it, "hacking" is about not doing the job "properly".
>> When trying to make something, a hacker will use the equivalent of duct
>> tape to hold things together.
>>
>> A computer hacker doesn't write the requirements of the software or
>> draw Jackson Structured Programming diagrams, etc, but just thinks
>> about what's needed and starts writing the code.
>
> That's a cowboy coder.

A cowboy coder is someone who's bad at coding, a hacker is someone
who's good at it.

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Teaching Python Passiday <passiday@gmail.com> - 2011-04-19 15:42 -0700
  Re: Teaching Python geremy condra <debatem1@gmail.com> - 2011-04-19 16:03 -0700
    Re: Teaching Python Sourav <souravmishra26@gmail.com> - 2011-04-19 20:48 -0700
      Re: Teaching Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-04-20 14:09 +1000
        Re: Teaching Python harrismh777 <harrismh777@charter.net> - 2011-04-20 22:38 -0500
  Re: Teaching Python Dan Stromberg <drsalists@gmail.com> - 2011-04-19 16:24 -0700
    Re: Teaching Python Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-04-20 10:06 +1000
      Re: Teaching Python Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2011-04-19 21:01 -0700
      Re: Teaching Python Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-04-20 10:17 +0000
        Re: Teaching Python Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2011-04-20 18:04 -0400
        Re: Teaching Python Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-04-20 21:27 +1000
      Re: Teaching Python Stefan Behnel <stefan_ml@behnel.de> - 2011-04-21 06:02 +0200
      Re: Teaching Python Westley Martínez <anikom15@gmail.com> - 2011-04-21 06:58 -0700
      Re: Teaching Python MRAB <python@mrabarnett.plus.com> - 2011-04-21 17:11 +0100
        Re: Teaching Python harrismh777 <harrismh777@charter.net> - 2011-04-22 00:49 -0500
      Re: Teaching Python Westley Martínez <anikom15@gmail.com> - 2011-04-21 15:36 -0700
        Re: Teaching Python harrismh777 <harrismh777@charter.net> - 2011-04-22 01:04 -0500
          Re: Teaching Python Westley Martínez <anikom15@gmail.com> - 2011-04-22 06:49 -0700
      Re: Teaching Python MRAB <python@mrabarnett.plus.com> - 2011-04-22 01:25 +0100
        Re: Teaching Python harrismh777 <harrismh777@charter.net> - 2011-04-22 00:40 -0500
      Re: Teaching Python Westley Martínez <anikom15@gmail.com> - 2011-04-21 18:39 -0700
  Re: Teaching Python Dan Stromberg <drsalists@gmail.com> - 2011-04-19 16:26 -0700
  Re: Teaching Python geremy condra <debatem1@gmail.com> - 2011-04-19 16:35 -0700
  Re: Teaching Python John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> - 2011-04-19 20:25 -0500
    Re: Teaching Python Alec Taylor <alec.taylor6@gmail.com> - 2011-04-20 11:59 +1000
      Re: Teaching Python Sourav <souravmishra26@gmail.com> - 2011-04-19 20:49 -0700
  Re: Teaching Python harrismh777 <harrismh777@charter.net> - 2011-04-19 23:46 -0500

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