chadwhitacre

A friend of mine recently started publishing on Svbtle, a super-classy, invite-only blogging platform. I like the super-classy part, not so much the invite-only part. Can we have classy and open?

The Promise of Svbtle

The only way I get to see Svbtle's editing interface is when its creator, Dustin Curtis, deigns to show me. Turns out I love it. It feels like Apple to me. And like Apple, Svbtle whiffs of totalitarianism. Are these two traits, high quality and crushing control, inseparable? From Dustin:

I’ve decided to open [Svbtle] up to a small number of vetted bloggers. At least at first. The goal is simple: when you see the Svbtle design, you should know that the content is guaranteed to be great.

When I see the Svbtle design, I think, "Gee, I wish I were part of this elite club." If it were really about the content, Svbtle would be more like The Economist. It would [downplay the identity](http://www.quora.com/The-Economist/Will-The-Econ

chadwhitacre

Testing public gists.

chadwhitacre

Last night I had my first experience teaching programming to beginners. The students had read the first three sections of the HTML 4 specification, and during the class session we installed a text editor and web browser, and started building web pages from scratch.

Based on the questions they asked and the discussion we had, I decided that it might help to zoom out a level and frame the concept of “programming” in general terms. This is what I came up with.

---

Computers are a tool to extend our power of reason.

Reason can be thought of as a processing of symbols according to rules.

chadwhitacre

#!/usr/bin/env python
import twitter
import simplejson

api = twitter.Api( consumer_key=''
                 , consumer_secret=''
                 , access_token_key=''
                 , access_token_secret=''
                  )

chadwhitacre

class Counter(object):
    visitors = 0
counter = Counter()
^L
counter.visitors += 1
^L
howdy, visitor number {{ visitors }} !

chadwhitacre

Greetings, program!

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program = "python"
^L
Greetings, {{ program }}!

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program = qs['program']
^L
Greetings, {{ program }}!

chadwhitacre

=================
 Don't Forget To
=================

0. Test often. Test after every little change.
1. Listen to music.
2. Drink coffee.
3. Do chores.

chadwhitacre

#!/usr/bin/env python

# The "import" statement finds modules (whatever those are!) and defines names
# in a namespace (whatever that is!):                                                                          
#                                                                                                              
#   http://docs.python.org/reference/simple_stmts.html#the-import-statement                                    
#                                                                                                              
# The "sys" module provides things related (apparently) to the interpreter
# (whatever that is!):                                                                                         
#