{"id":403,"date":"2013-05-09T16:19:43","date_gmt":"2013-05-09T21:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/?p=403"},"modified":"2013-06-12T21:24:30","modified_gmt":"2013-06-13T02:24:30","slug":"pi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/pi\/","title":{"rendered":"Pi"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Economist :: Babbage Blog :: Humble Pi<\/a><\/p>\n

The Raspberry Pi is the brainchild of a couple of computer scientists at Cambridge University. Back in 2006, they lamented the decline in programming skills among applicants for computer-science courses. ... Over the past ten years, computer-science students have gone from arriving at university with a knowledge of several assembly and high-level programming languages to having little more than a working knowledge of HTML, Javascript and perhaps PHP\u2014simple tools for constructing web sites. To learn a computer language, \u201cyou\u2019ve got to put in your 10,000 hours,\u201d says Dr Upton. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a lot easier if you start when you\u2019re 18.\u201d Some would say it is even better to start at 14.<\/p>\n

The problem is not a lack of interest, but the lack of cheap, programmable hardware for teenagers to cut their teeth on. For typical youngsters, computers have become too complicated, too difficult to open (laptops especially) and alter their settings, and way too expensive to tinker with and risk voiding their warranty by frying their innards.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don't see the connection between learning to code and having super-cheap hardware. Back when I was a kid learning to program I actually had to pay real money for a compiler. (Anyone else remember Borland Turbo C++?) Now you're tripping over free languages and environments to use, including many that run entirely through your browser so there's zero risk to your machine.<\/p>\n

Honestly how many teens are going to go full-David Lightman and be doing serious enough hacking that their hardware is at risk? Is the goal to make sure teens have the opportunity to start learning to code before college, or to give them hardware to tinker with? Those are both fine goals. Being a software guy I'd put more weight on the former, but the important thing is that the way to accomplish either are completely different.<\/p>\n

The Pi is a great way to meet the goal of giving people cheap hardware to experiment with. But if the goal is to give kids an opportunity to start racking up their 10k hours in front of an interpeter or compiler then projects like Repl.it<\/a>\u00a0are a lot better. (Repl.it has in-browser interpreters for JavaScript, Ruby, Python, Scheme and a dozen other languages.)<\/p>\n

For starters, [your correspondant] plans to turn his existing Raspberry Pi into a media centre. By all accounts, Raspbmc\u2014a Linux-based operating system derived from the XBox game-player\u2019s media centre\u2014is a pretty powerful media player. The first task, then, is to rig the Raspberry Pi up so it can pluck video off the internet, via a nearby WiFi router, and stream it direct to a TV in the living room. Finding out not whether, but just how well, this minimalist little computer manages such a feat will be all part of the fun.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I did this exact project about a month ago, and couldn't be more pleased with either the results or the fun of getting it to work. I still have to tinker with some things: the Vimeo plugin won't log into my account<\/a>, and I need to build a case. Other than that, I wish I had done this a long time ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Economist :: Babbage Blog :: Humble Pi The Raspberry Pi is the brainchild of a couple of computer scientists at Cambridge University. Back in 2006, they lamented the decline in programming skills among applicants for computer-science courses. ... Over … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[3,19,8,18,15],"class_list":["post-403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cs","tag-computer-science","tag-education","tag-programming","tag-projects","tag-technology","wpautop"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s3sddF-pi","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":686,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/knuth-on-tools\/","url_meta":{"origin":403,"position":0},"title":"Knuth on Tools","author":"jsylvest","date":"22 July 2013","format":"aside","excerpt":"The enjoyment of one's tools is an essential ingredient of successful work. \u2014 Donald Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming Vol. II, \u00a74.2.2A This is the dual of \"only a poor craftsmen blames his tools.\" See John D. Cook on this dichotomy here and here.","rel":"","context":"In "CS \/ Science \/ Tech \/ Coding"","block_context":{"text":"CS \/ Science \/ Tech \/ Coding","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/cs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":542,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/reading-list-for-16-july-2013\/","url_meta":{"origin":403,"position":1},"title":"Reading List for 16 July 2013","author":"jsylvest","date":"16 July 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Evan Miller :: Winkel Tripel Warping Trouble or \"How I Found a Bug in the Journal of Surveying Engineering\" All programming blogs need at least one post unofficially titled \u201cIndisputable Proof That I Am Awesome.\u201d These are usually my favorite kind of read, as the protagonist starts out with a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reading Lists"","block_context":{"text":"Reading Lists","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/reading-lists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Irene Global Tweets WInkel Tripel","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Irene-Global-Tweets-WInkel-Tripel-1024x604.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Irene-Global-Tweets-WInkel-Tripel-1024x604.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Irene-Global-Tweets-WInkel-Tripel-1024x604.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Irene-Global-Tweets-WInkel-Tripel-1024x604.png?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":406,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/reading-list-for-28-may-2013\/","url_meta":{"origin":403,"position":2},"title":"Reading List for 28 May 2013","author":"jsylvest","date":"28 May 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"For Science! 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An Exploration of Stack Overflow [pdf] As a CS guy who's tip-toed into psychology here and there I would offer Morrison & Murphy-Hill this advice: tread very, very lightly when making claims regarding the words \"knowledge\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reading Lists"","block_context":{"text":"Reading Lists","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/reading-lists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"busy_sciencing","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/busy_sciencing.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1564,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/bart-barrage-of-random-transforms-for-adversarially-robust-defense\/","url_meta":{"origin":403,"position":3},"title":"BaRT: Barrage of Random Transforms for Adversarially Robust Defense","author":"jsylvest","date":"19 June 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"This week I'm at CVPR \u2014 the IEEE's Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference, which is a huge AI event. I'm currently rehearsing the timing of my talk one last time, but I wanted to take a minute between run-throughs to link to my co-author Steven Forsyth's wonderful post on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "CS \/ Science \/ Tech \/ Coding"","block_context":{"text":"CS \/ Science \/ Tech \/ Coding","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/cs\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/img1_trans05_0000_crop.png?fit=436%2C436&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":95,"url":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/remembering-armen-alchian\/","url_meta":{"origin":403,"position":4},"title":"Armen Alchian & Unnecessary Mathematical Fireworks","author":"jsylvest","date":"27 February 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Cato Daily Podcast :: Remembering Armen Alchian Don Boudreaux discussing Armen Alchian's preference for clear prose over \"mathematical pyrotechnics\" reminded me of a few neural networks researchers I know. 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That might explain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reading Lists"","block_context":{"text":"Reading Lists","link":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/category\/reading-lists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Some sample pilcrows from the H&FJ foundry.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/h%2Bfj_pilcrows.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":430,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions\/430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsylvest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}