Squeak-dev August 2001

squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org

187 participants
488 discussions

RE: Microsoft removes Netscape support from IE; plug-in needsre- writing.
by Richard A. O'Keefe 07 Aug '01

07 Aug '01

I mentioned that sites only know what browsers _say_ they are, not what they _really_ are. Bob Jarvis wrote: OK. How many people make use of that fact to mask their browser use? I submit that the number of people doing this is vanishingly small - far less than 1 percent. That's completely irrelevant. The question that matters is "does anyone PROVIDING browsers have any reason to identify their browser, by default, as IE" and the answer is "yes of course they do", and the second question is "do any of the browser providers actually do this" and the answer to that is again "yes, of course they do". Amongst other things, consider the issue of Javascript compatibility (not that there is such a thing, but you know what I mean). Suppose a web site can recognise Netscape and IE, and tailors its DHTML for one or the other. Then a browser had *BETTER* announce itself as Netscape or as IE, rather than as itself, so that it can be used by the people who don't know or care how to configure it. If one of the browsers is better supported by web sites than the other, then the browser had better, BY DEFAULT, announce itself as the one that is better supported. Accordingly, there is every reason for browser providers to have their (non-netscape, non-IE) browsers announce themselves as some version of IE. It doesn't any longer mean "who are you", it means "which HTML/DHTML dialect do you want". Because of that shift in meaning, site statistics based on browser identification DO reliably inform us of HTML/DHTML dialect preference, but DON'T reliably tell us anything about browser preference.

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RE: Computers in school
by G.J.Tielemans＠dinkel.utwente.nl 06 Aug '01

06 Aug '01

> -----Original Message----- > From: Karl Ramberg [mailto:karl.ramberg@chello.se] > Sent: maandag 6 augustus 2001 22:01 > To: squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org > Subject: Re: Computers in school > But on the positive side, when kids 4-5 years old learn all names and > stages of Pokemon without parents or teachers involvement proves that > the potential > of learning seemingly unimportant knowledge is there :-) > Karl > Ger: From our perspectiv it may look unimportant, for them it is on that moment their whole life! So motivation is an imprtant part! But I share also with you the amazement how easy children learn (in our eyes) very complex things. The big challenge is to use this readiness on the moment when it is there. Piaget spoke about sensitiv periods. In my observation children of specific age are very sensitiv for gnomes, later for dinasours, several years later for horses -especially the Zebra - , then the univers with its planets and starts and at last: knowledge about hurricanes (Even here in the Netherlands where we never have these things.) The trick is to combine these interest with cultural imprtant things to learn, and then convincing the headmasters....

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RE: Computers in school
by G.J.Tielemans＠dinkel.utwente.nl 06 Aug '01

06 Aug '01

I think it is a little more complicated: 1. Hobby or professional? Hardly any professional can imagine how to do his/her job without a good computer. Mastering computerprograms as tools and integrating them efficently in a professional setting is more and more part of the new professional skills and lot of companies earn money to teach these skills... If you use a computer for fun it becomes one of these time consuming childisch games like Fishing, Hunting, Football. In these settings it is the user who sets his own targets and rewards: these differ from person to person. Reading a manual is cheating, first making a plan makes it look like work etc.. 2. Tool or Toy? Some people want to realize things with computers, nice and quick: they (for)sees the results and hate these clumsy machines, which never do what you WANT them to do, spoiling your valuable time.. Hit Return, You can count on that!! If you see it as a toy, it is part of the game: who wants to solve to easy puzzles? (If I go to the internet in freetime, a wonder about all these things You can find on the internet for free, but looking for information about a product and finding a place in the neigbourhood where I can buy it makes me - on that moment - more and more a computer-hater.. More women are (thought to be?) users, more men still want to play games? 3. What is the use? What is the sense of learning computer-programming-skills? Do you become isolated when you cannot write programs? In the Eighties some people wrote books about that, nowadays more people say that these machines should be more user-friendly, hidden in everyday life: Programming is for nerds and other fossiles, less and less secundary school-children choose for technical skills, boys too. (Teaching students more abstract thinking skills by the tool "programming", so not programming as goal itself, did even disappear from the educational front.) 4. Time is money, so can you proof that it pays off if you theach children programming instead of, yes instead of what? > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark Guzdial [mailto:guzdial@cc.gatech.edu] > Sent: maandag 6 augustus 2001 19:43 > To: squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org > Subject: Re: Computers in school > > > > > >I like Alan's quote very much (it is on my website - > >http://www.toontalk.com/English/adultask.htm ). My question > is why after 17 > >years do so few people understand that that is what is so > special about > >computer programming. Why are there so few actively trying > to spread the > >power and joy of programming to the wider world? Why is it > such a hard > >sell? > > In my opinion, Ken, the answer to that question has got to be on the > level of a Grand Challenge. Why is programming so hard? (And > similarly: Why are so many willing to move kids towards computers as > appliances but not as media?) > > At GaTech, we recently started a bunch of assessments of our students > and found that even 40% of our 2nd Semester students couldn't write a > dozen lines of Java code (insert and delete of a linked list) when > given the class definition and method headers, a compiler they knew, > and 90 minutes. I've mentioned these assessments on this list > previously. > > Over last Spring, a group of us did a similar study at GaTech, > another US institution, one in the UK, and one in Poland. The > problem was building an RPN or infix calculator (different problems > with different data sets). We did our meta-analyses last month. End > result: Average grade was 25%. (This'll be appearing in the ACM > SIGCSE Bulletin soon.) > > What's amazing is how few people are studying this. At a time when > so many (e.g., the PCAST report) point to the importance of > information technology and education about it for the health of the > economy, research into CS Education has virtually disappeared. The > last Empirical Studies of Programmers workshop was cancelled due to > lack of submissions! > > I think that we have clues about why it's so hard for so many, and > how to make it easier. Amy Bruckman showed that making programming > socially cool (in Moose Crossing) made it possible for lots of kids > to learn to program. The recent American Association of University > Women report pointed out that women (and many others, I'll bet) are > drawn away from IT because we make CS classes as boring as possible. > Motivation is important, and showing that computers can do > interesting and creative things is critical to making programming > learnable. The Squeak tile approach of using multiple parallel > scripts (similar to the approaches in Logo Mindstorms and StarLogo) > to avoid explicit conditionals or iteration is a fascinating > direction to explore. > > Seymour Papert has written that it's inherent in school's structure > to avoid revolution, and that programming will never become > integrated into school curricula because of that (ref: Journal of the > Learning Sciences article last year, and in the Children's Machine > and Connected Family books). I hope he's wrong, but I think the > small number of people pushing on this problem makes it more likely > that he'll be right. > > Mark > > -------------------------- > Mark Guzdial : Georgia Tech : College of Computing : Atlanta, > GA 30332-0280 > Associate Professor - Learning Sciences & Technologies. > Collaborative Software Lab - http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/csl/ > (404) 894-5618 : Fax (404) 894-0673 : guzdial(a)cc.gatech.edu > http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Faculty/Mark.Guzdial.html > >

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Re: Computers in school
by Ken Kahn 06 Aug '01

06 Aug '01

Dick Karpinski wrote: "I guess my general claim is that computers should best be used in the classroom, not even as a tool, but rather as a medium. Like paper or film or audio tape. We don't go to the theatre to watch the projector, but rather what it projects and the sound it plays. Still, there are limitless opportunities for schooling to be improved, and students to be placed more centrally in the process, which involve computers in some way." The protean nature of the computer is such that it can act like a machine or like a language to be shaped and exploited. It is a medium that can dynamically simulate the details of any other medium, including media that cannot exist physically. It is not a tool, although it can act like many tools. It is the first metamedium, and as such it has degrees of freedom for representation and expression never before encountered and as yet barely investigated. Even more important, it is fun, and therefore intrinsically worth doing. ... Computers are to computing as instruments are to music. Software is the score, whose interpretation amplifies our reach and lifts our spirit. Leonardo da Vinci called music ``the shaping of the invisible,'' and his phrase is even more apt as a description of software. The above is a quote from Alan Kay's article ``Computer Software'' in Scientific American, September 1984. I like Alan's quote very much (it is on my website - http://www.toontalk.com/English/adultask.htm ). My question is why after 17 years do so few people understand that that is what is so special about computer programming. Why are there so few actively trying to spread the power and joy of programming to the wider world? Why is it such a hard sell? Best, -ken kahn

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[Computering] The Death of TCP/IP
by Jeff Szuhay 06 Aug '01

06 Aug '01

Forgive me for posting this here, yet I came across this article which is so plausible yet so monumentally horrifying that it deserves consideration. You may also want to consider Bob's several previous posts on MS and Security. The internet _will_ have a toll booth, and MS will be the onc collecting <shudder>. article URL: <http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010802.html> The Death of TCP/IP Why the Age of Internet Innocence is Over By Robert X. Cringely "As events of the last several weeks have shown, Microsoft Windows, e-mail and the Internet create the perfect breeding ground for virus attacks. They don't even have to exploit Windows flaws to be effective. Any Visual BASIC programmer with a good understanding of how Windows works can write a virus. All that is needed is a cleverly titled file attachment payload, and almost anyone can be induced to open it, spreading the contagion. It is too darned easy to create these programs that can do billions in damage. ..." some exercpts: "The wonder of all these Internet security problems is that they are continually labeled as "e-mail viruses" or "Internet worms," rather than the more correct designation of "Windows viruses" or "Microsoft Outlook viruses." It is to the credit of the Microsoft public relations team that Redmond has somehow escaped blame, because nearly all the data security problems of recent years have been Windows-specific, taking advantage of the glaring security loopholes that exist in these Microsoft products. If it were not for Microsoft's carefully worded user license agreement, which holds the company blameless for absolutely anything, they would probably have been awash in class action lawsuits by now." and, "And now, we have the impending release of Windows XP, and its problem of raw TCP/IP socket exposure. As I detailed two weeks ago, XP is the first home version of Windows to allow complete access to TCP/IP sockets, which can be exploited by viruses to do all sorts of damage. Windows XP uses essentially the same TCP/IP software as Windows 2000, except that XP lacks 2000's higher-level security features. In order to be backward compatible with applications written for Windows 95, 98, and ME, Windows XP allows any application full access to raw sockets. "This is dangerous." furthermore, "According to these programmers, Microsoft wants to replace TCP/IP with a proprietary protocol -- a protocol owned by Microsoft -- that it will tout as being more secure. Actually, the new protocol would likely be TCP/IP with some of the reserved fields used as pointers to proprietary extensions, quite similar to Vines IP, if you remember that product from Banyan Systems. I'll call it TCP/MS. "How do you push for the acceptance of a new protocol? First, make the old one unworkable by placing millions of exploitable TCP/IP stacks out on the Net, ready-to-use by any teenage sociopath. When the Net slows or crashes, the blame would not be assigned to Microsoft. Then ship the new protocol with every new copy of Windows, and install it with every Windows Update over the Internet. Zero to 100 million copies could happen in less than a year, and that year could be prior to the new protocol even being announced. It could be shipping right now. "Suppose you are a typical firm that also has some non-Microsoft servers. You will want to use this new protocol between your Microsoft and non- Microsoft servers. Microsoft could charge Sun millions to put TCP/MS on their systems. Microsoft can promise open support, but make it financially impractical. Then use it in a marketing attack against competitors. Zero-Footprint network drivers, ODBC, and MAPI are examples of Microsoft "open" standards that took years for non-Microsoft firms to use. Almost anyone who would have wanted to use these open standards has been driven out of business. " and finally, (here's the horror) "MS/TCP will ostensibly be a solution to the problems businesses are having with the Internet. It will assign priorities to packets. It will insure that all connections and packets can be traced, authenticated, and monitored. And since all these connections to the Internet have to be authenticated to someone, it will likely be hooked into a credit card or some sort of account, from which Microsoft can extract its price as the gatekeeper for the authentication via Hailstorm, Passport and .NET. "But how will this stop the "I just e-mailed you a virus" problem? How does this stop my personal information being sucked out of my PC via cookies? It won't. Solving those particular problems is not the protocol's real purpose, which is to increase Microsoft's market share. It is a marketing concept that will be sold as the solution to a problem. It won't really work." -- ************************************************** Jeff Szuhay A randomly-directed www.szuhay.org chaotical wetware pattern jeff(a)szuhay.org recognizer/generator. "The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place." -Douglas Adams, on Windows '95

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Apology.
by olmy 06 Aug '01

06 Aug '01

Last four message were mis-sent. Peace, Colm.

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RE: [Computering] The Death of TCP/IP
by Jarvis, Robert P. (Contingent) 06 Aug '01

06 Aug '01

Postulating Microsoft == Borg, one must ask Where do you want to be assimilated today..? Bob Jarvis Compuware @ Timken > -----Original Message----- > From: Jeff Szuhay [mailto:jeff@szuhay.org] > Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2001 2:02 PM > To: Squeak Public Maliing List > Subject: [Computering] The Death of TCP/IP > > > Forgive me for posting this here, yet I came across this > article which is so plausible yet so monumentally horrifying > that it deserves consideration. You may also want to consider > Bob's several previous posts on MS and Security. > > The internet _will_ have a > toll booth, and MS will be the onc collecting <shudder>. > > article URL: <http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010802.html> > > The Death of TCP/IP > Why the Age of Internet Innocence is Over > By Robert X. Cringely > > "As events of the last several weeks have shown, Microsoft Windows, > e-mail and the Internet create the perfect breeding ground for virus > attacks. They don't even have to exploit Windows flaws to be > effective. > Any Visual BASIC programmer with a good understanding of how Windows > works can write a virus. All that is needed is a cleverly titled file > attachment payload, and almost anyone can be induced to open it, > spreading > the contagion. It is too darned easy to create these programs > that can do > billions in damage. ..." > > some exercpts: > > "The wonder of all these Internet security problems is that they are > continually labeled as "e-mail viruses" or "Internet worms," > rather than > the more correct designation of "Windows viruses" or > "Microsoft Outlook > viruses." It is to the credit of the Microsoft public > relations team that > Redmond has somehow escaped blame, because nearly all the > data security > problems of recent years have been Windows-specific, taking > advantage of > the glaring security loopholes that exist in these Microsoft > products. > If it were not for Microsoft's carefully worded user license > agreement, > which holds the company blameless for absolutely anything, they would > probably have been awash in class action lawsuits by now." > > and, > > "And now, we have the impending release of Windows XP, and > its problem of > raw TCP/IP socket exposure. As I detailed two weeks ago, XP > is the first > home version of Windows to allow complete access to TCP/IP > sockets, which > can be exploited by viruses to do all sorts of damage. > Windows XP uses > essentially the same TCP/IP software as Windows 2000, except that XP > lacks 2000's higher-level security features. In order to be backward > compatible > with applications written for Windows 95, 98, and ME, Windows > XP allows > any application full access to raw sockets. > > "This is dangerous." > > furthermore, > > "According to these programmers, Microsoft wants to replace > TCP/IP with > a proprietary protocol -- a protocol owned by Microsoft -- > that it will > tout as being more secure. Actually, the new protocol would likely be > TCP/IP with some of the reserved fields used as pointers to > proprietary > extensions, quite similar to Vines IP, if you remember that > product from > Banyan Systems. I'll call it TCP/MS. > > "How do you push for the acceptance of a new protocol? First, > make the > old one unworkable by placing millions of exploitable TCP/IP > stacks out > on the Net, ready-to-use by any teenage sociopath. When the Net slows > or crashes, the blame would not be assigned to Microsoft. > Then ship the > new protocol with every new copy of Windows, and install it > with every > Windows Update over the Internet. Zero to 100 million copies > could happen > in less than a year, and that year could be prior to the new protocol > even > being announced. It could be shipping right now. > > "Suppose you are a typical firm that also has some > non-Microsoft servers. > You will want to use this new protocol between your Microsoft and non- > Microsoft servers. Microsoft could charge Sun millions to put > TCP/MS on > their systems. Microsoft can promise open support, but make it > financially > impractical. Then use it in a marketing attack against competitors. > Zero-Footprint network drivers, ODBC, and MAPI are examples > of Microsoft > "open" standards that took years for non-Microsoft firms to > use. Almost > anyone who would have wanted to use these open standards has > been driven > out of business. " > > and finally, (here's the horror) > > "MS/TCP will ostensibly be a solution to the problems businesses are > having > with the Internet. It will assign priorities to packets. It > will insure > that > all connections and packets can be traced, authenticated, and > monitored. > And since all these connections to the Internet have to be > authenticated > to someone, it will likely be hooked into a credit card or > some sort of > account, from which Microsoft can extract its price as the > gatekeeper for > the authentication via Hailstorm, Passport and .NET. > > "But how will this stop the "I just e-mailed you a virus" > problem? How > does > this stop my personal information being sucked out of my PC > via cookies? > It won't. Solving those particular problems is not the > protocol's real > purpose, which is to increase Microsoft's market share. It is > a marketing > concept that will be sold as the solution to a problem. It > won't really > work." > > > > > -- > ************************************************** > Jeff Szuhay A randomly-directed > www.szuhay.org chaotical wetware pattern > jeff(a)szuhay.org recognizer/generator. > > > "The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like > a knight in shining armour to lead all customers > out of a mire of technological chaos neatly > ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling > second-rate technology, led them into it in the > first place." > -Douglas Adams, on Windows '95 > > > >

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Exquisite.
by olmy 06 Aug '01

06 Aug '01

Squeak looks nice, i do not care what anyone says, the Paisley shirt of interface look. It feels right. ;-) Peace, Colm.

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Please play with Nebraska server
by Russell Allen 06 Aug '01

06 Aug '01

Hi, I've set up a nebraska server at squeakspace.com to play with. If you want to play with nebraska, this is your chance :) To connect, go TheWorldMenu>>new morph...>>Experimental>>EToySenderMorph, and replace the IP address with 'squeakspace.com'; and press the 'S' button. It seems very slow, so good luck to anyone without a direct connection to the Australian backbone :) :) When it crashs I will probably attempt to start it again, if I notice. Cheers, Russell ---------------------------------------- Russell Allen russell.allen(a)firebirdmedia.com ----------------------------------------

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Computers in school
by Dick Karpinski 06 Aug '01

06 Aug '01

Nicely said sir. The guy who started the Macintosh is still around and he sees more than mice and windows. In fact I heartily recommend reading his recent book, The Humane Interface by Jef Raskin. (I am, myself, quoted on page 18.) Then too, there is the guy who wrote Engines for Education. I'll have his name shortly. He runs the Institute for the Learning Sciences out of Northwestern University in Illinois. Roger Schank. One of his associates developed Sickle Cell Counsellor as a rich learning environment. It's on permanent exhibit at the SF Exploratorium and again, I highly recommend trying it out. The folks there were astonished by the length of time it captured folks. Instead of the usual one minute, more or less, it captures visitors for half an hour or more. I tried it out and now know a lot about the subject despite my experience being years old. Another school use of computers is as a *minor* tool. That is, the culture and the educational goals are far more relevant than the details of the supporting computer software. CSILE, the computer supported intentional learning environment, is one such tool. It lets students build a hyper- text (including drawings) of questions, answers, and other comments about whatever subject is under study. Naturally, that reminds me of IBIS and QuestMap which would add structure and order to a hyper-text such as CSILE encourages. QuestMap is another *minor* tool which is quite neutral to the content of the questions, answers, and pro and con arguments input to it. Nevertheless, by the structure it imposes, it makes obvious that a question can be reframed or posed alternatively; that another answer can be proposed; that a new argument can be added for or against any answer/idea. I guess my general claim is that computers should best be used in the classroom, not even as a tool, but rather as a medium. Like paper or film or audio tape. We don't go to the theatre to watch the projector, but rather what it projects and the sound it plays. Still, there are limitless opportunities for schooling to be improved, and students to be placed more centrally in the process, which involve computers in some way. Dick Responding to: > From: "Vassili Bykov" <vassili(a)parcplace.com> > To: <squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org> > Subject: Re: non-programmer intro (topic drift) > Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 17:05:01 -0700 > > From: Roger Kenyon <edutec(a)idirect.com> > > Over 20 years ago, R. P. Taylor identified 3 basic ways of using > > computers in schools. I think they are still valid: > > > > 1. As tutor, such as drill and practice, remedial exercises, training > > simulations. > > > > 2. As tool, such as word processors, spreadsheets, multimedia > > encyclopedia CD ROM, HTML editors. > > > > 3. As tutee, such as macros, scripting, domain-specific programming and > > any other development environments that enable the student to teach the > > computer how to perform some task. > > I think all of these are only true if you view a computer as a cross of a > microfiche reader with a calculator, designed to "aid" the learning process. > This was probably OK 20 years ago. It is probably still OK now, since > nothing has changed in computers in 20 years. > > I am questioning what "using in schools" really means and achieves. Is > "using" as in spending money and having kids do (1), (2) and (3) something > that is a goal in itself? Perhaps it could be achieved by doing the right > thing, training teachers, giving them "edutainment" software of all kinds, > evironments with robots and whatnot. But, what is the ultimate goal: the > process or the result? Will following the three nicely categorized ways > really make the student realize the creativity she has, learn about the > world around her, and express herself in that world? What is the untimate > goal -- building a more efficient pipeline to download preprocessed > knowledge into students' minds, or creating an environment where students > learn to *use* those minds? I am afraid the three ways above concentrate of > the former much more than on the latter. Here are my specific qualms about > them. > > 1 - Computer as a tutor. Everybody thinks different. Helping a person > learn to use the cognitive and creative potentials that they have is about > nurturing, not about stuffing them with correct concepts in the correct > order. Computer in the role of a tutor -- in the sense of something giving > instructions and controlling progress -- has as much appeal and chance of > success with people as voice mail in the role of customer support. You can > lead a horse to the water, but you can't make him drink. > > 2 - Computer as a tool. This is too narrow-minded. Computer is a tool only > because most people have too little imagination to think of it as anything > else. After all, the whole history of technical progress was about building > better tools. People rarely see what they are not used to seeing. Apple > engineers of the 80-ies didn't see anything in Smalltalk except a mouse and > windows, and OO technologists of the 90-ies didn't see in it anything but > techniques for assembling the innards of their black box "applications" in a > slightly more convenient manner then before. > > 3 - Computer as a tutee. What percentage of "normal" people out there enjoy > teaching computers how to perform tasks? We may think it is fun and > important because it is so in our little geeky world. What if I am an > 8-year old who wants to sculpt, or compose, or make a cartoon, or build a > rocket to fly to the moon? Will I be told to stop that and "do what's > important" instead? Computer can be an environment where everything is > possible -- unconstrained by physics, time, money and common sense. Using > it should not be about "using a computer", rather about doing what you want > to do. We certainly are not even close to that. Not when the majority of > people who are comfortable using computers are programmers, and the majority > of those think a powerful environment is when you have a source-level > debugger. > > Sorry if this sounds loony or somewhat offensive to any of the previous > posters. This was certainly not intended. This is just what got > accumulated while looking at the kind of problems the average CS/IT crowd > out there is concerned about. > > Cheers, > > --Vassili > > -- > Vassili Bykov [|] <vassili(a)parcplace.com> > VisualWorks Engineering

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