ImageIO Exception
While grading student work, I pass through the whole spectrum of feelings, from elation to disappointment to bafflement to pride. Today I spent a fair bit of time in disappointment, but not because of my students’ code. Because of some code in the Java library. Hear, my friend, a tale of a standard library gone […]
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage
This is my third post in a series of reviews on technology-related graphic novels. I had hoped to participate in a special session on such novels at SIGCSE 2017, but the the special session was not accepted by the reviewers. *sniff* The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is subtitled “the (mostly) true story of […]
Jewel Find
My son, who just turned 8 a couple of weeks ago, has been hard at work on building a game for his school’s science, technology, engineering, art, and math fair. (We just call it a STEAM fair.) He designed all the levels, typed all the code, and generally used me only for the initial levels, […]
Secret Coders
My foray into technology-themed graphic novels began with a book about consumerism, but now we turn to a book on what I call developerism—the insatiable need to design and make your own stuff using the computer. Gene Luen Yang and Mike Holmes have published two books so far in a series called Secret Coders, which […]
Making a Bitbucket Repository Private
Students in my classes submit their work using a private Bitbucket repository. Usually the repository is made private during the forking process, but sometimes folks miss this step. Following are the steps to make a repository private after it has been forked. Visit your repository’s page on Bitbucket’s website. Go to Settings / Repository details. […]
In Real Life
For SIGCSE 2017, I’m reading a bunch of graphic novels related to computer science and technology. First up is In Real Life, by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang. I share here notes and reactions from my reading. Spoilers lie ahead. I have to write as much down as I can, because the book is due […]
Code Scrambler
Some of the most engaging learning I’ve ever experienced was in high school Spanish class. What magic did Mrs. Lee possess that made instruction so enjoyable? She had us play countless games. I try to emulate her foreign language classroom when I teach folks a new programming language and am therefore always on the hunt […]
Picturing Git
It took me a few years of using Git before I started to understand what I was doing. In the hopes that I can shorten that time for you, I share here a description of the mental model that I’ve developed of how it works in the classes that I teach. One-time Setup Before the […]
Subtracting Subtraction, Part 1
Some things are easier than others. The elevator is easier than the stairs. Criticizing others’ ideas is easier than originating one’s own. Addition is easier than subtraction. Let’s focus on the last of these. Why is subtraction more difficult than addition? Borrowing. When a digit in the subtrahend (the second number) is greater than the […]
Peruvian ITiCSE
I had intended the summer to be a simple one. No teaching, no big grants, no painting the house. Then I learned that ITiCSE 2016 would be in Peru. This country is so far off the maps that chart out my life I knew that if didn’t go now, I never would. So, I submitted […]