Items tagged with coding
There’s been an increased emphasis at getting children interested in programming at an early age. We’ve seen initiatives like the BBC micro:bit computer which is being spread to school-age children and the proliferation of pint-sized and economical Raspberry Pi’s in the education sector. Google is also looking to throw its hat in the ring with a new open hardware platform called Project Bloks. It uses physical blocks, err, bloks, which represent simple commands such as up, down, turn 180 degrees, on and off. You can also have a variety of sliders, dials or timers to further modify commands. These bloks can be linked together to carry out simple or elaborate actions.Project Bloks Brain Board “The...
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Many parents want to teach their children how to code, but do not know how to go about doing it. Sphero, the company behind the BB-8 toy robot based on the droid from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, has released the Sphero SPRK and its corresponding app. The toy robot is intended to inspire a love of robotics, coding, and STEM principles while teaching the power of cause, effect, and conditions in programming. Students can learn and program a variety of concepts through the Lightning Lab app. The Sphero SPRK can navigate a maze, program a painting, mimic the solar system, and even swim across water. Sphero used its own C-based coding language called OVAL. The Lightning Lab app also enables users...
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If you're not affected by it, and don't know anyone else who's affected by it, it's easy to brush the issue of gender bias under the rug. The reality, however, is that it's an issue that's proven over and over again to be a serious problem. Apparently, it's even a problem in the programming world. Six researchers from Cal Poly and North Carolina State University banded together to see the effects of gender bias on GitHub, the world's leading open source code-hosting website. GitHub's structure allows project members to submit "pull" requests from the project leader to gain permission to overwrite existing code or add some new code. A simple feature, and one that you wouldn't think would be that...
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Facebook has endeavored to make coding a more efficient process by developing a coding language called Hack. Facebook has been using Hack internally for quite some time, and now the company is open sourcing the tool for anyone to use. “Hack is a programming language for HHVM that interoperates seamlessly with PHP,” reads the “Hack Lang” website. “Hack reconciles the fast development cycle of PHP with the discipline provided by static typing, while adding many features commonly found in other modern programming languages.” The problem that Facebook addressed with Hack is the problem of the slower pace of static code typing and the lesser accuracy of dynamic...
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At the intersection of awesome and banal, there’s this: Code.org, a terrific site that helps kids learn coding from an early age, has a fun 8-step “puzzle” that lets kids program their own custom version of “Flappy Birds”. It’s a simple drag-and-drop sort of programming with blocks that represent actions and event handlers. For example, you start with a “flap” block that you can connect to a “when click” handler. Then you run the program in a small window and observe that whenever you click, the bird flaps. As you complete each of the either sections, there are more and more complex actions that you can implement. You can even select...
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Computer programming may seem overly complex to learn, like learning a new spoken language, but as time has passed, it has become more inviting and easier to understand than ever. This is a fact that the folks behind Code.org, along with its sponsors, would like to get across. If coding for some reason sounds pointless, or not worth the time investment, consider the fact that services like Facebook and Dropbox began with a single line of code, and now, companies like these are worth millions, or even billions. Not too bad for something that can be created at home, is it? That's the cool thing about coding: It's not just a job, it's an art. Like a painter who can produce a beautiful scene on canvas,...
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For many, the idea of becoming a coder sounds like a terribly difficult if not esoteric thing, a skill set as exclusive as brain surgery or rocket science. And while being good at coding will open virtually an unlimited number of doors, it’s not as unattainable as it may seem. Code.org is a website designed to both spread the word that there are tens of thousands of vacant jobs for programmers out there and also provide an “authoritative database of all programming schools” available, both online and at physical locations. You can also begin to learn to code right there on the website. If you’re unconvinced, check out this video of smart and talented people telling you...
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Adobe is working to make it easier for designers to build their own Web sites. A new application from Adobe, codenamed Muse, lets designers create and publish functional Web sites in a similar way to how they would mock-up a site in InDesign or Illustrator. Muse offers users a familiar Adobe tool set in a WYSIWYG interface. Muse is not designed to interact with Dreamweaver, another web design software program from Adobe. With Muse, you can use chunks of HTML and Web widgets such as YouTube videos or Google Maps. You'll also be able to arrange pages using a sitemap and create design elements that are common across multiple pages. The current release does not offer templates. Although many of its...
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LostCircuits has an informative article on-line today that focuses on a number of popular audio and video encoding applications. They pit a handful of Intel processors against similarly priced counterparts from AMD. If encoding performance is important to you, this article will likely be of interest. "Arguably, the biggest factor driving the computer industry is gaming. However, the home entertainment sector, especially encoding of audiovisual content, is becoming increasingly important as well. Ripping and editing software ranges from super-expensive studio editions to free downloads. Each program has its own quirks, favoring either Intel's...
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