Python 3.0.1 released

If you haven't made the switch to Python 3, now is a good time to do so with the release of this next version.  There is now a nice Mac disk image as well. 

Bioinformatics Followup

We had a great visit with Paul Mattson and Carlos Sosa.  They both spoke about the field as well as the new opportunity at the University of Minnesota-Rochester.  You can find Carlos' presentation here. He also made us aware of this internship opportunity in Bioinformatics at the University of Minnesota. It's not too late to apply.

Computer Science/Biology Colloquium

Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology

Paul Mattson and Dr. Carlos Sosa will be speaking on Thursday, February 12 at 9:40am in Olin 102. They will be giving an overview of the field of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology as well as an overview of the new BICB Program at the University of Minnesota-Rochester.  This exciting new program will combine expertise and resources from the University of Minnesota, IBM, and the Mayo Clinic.

First Year Seminar with Alice

I just finished teaching a January term first year seminar course (highlighted in this YouTube video). Nineteen students (all non computer science students) explored computer science and programming. We used the Alice programming environment which allowed us to construct some interesting 3D animations. In general, the students seemed to like the challenge of providing instructions for their 3D worlds. Although I enjoyed teaching with Alice, I am still convinced that Python is the appropriate programming language for beginning students. This is especially the case when used with our cTurtle (turtle graphics) and cImage (image processing) modules.

Python

Some of you may be looking for Python resources related to our textbooks. The PythonWorks website has been our primary repository for material. However, for our most recent book, Python Programming in Context, we are also going to use a blog to track errors and comments. You can find the link in My Blog List.

Welcome

I am in the process of moving my home page to a Google hosted blog. My current link from the Luther College CS department will redirect to this page. My hope is to keep this site up to date for all my courses, book projects, and other miscellaneous stuff. I will still use Katie at Luther to manage my courses.