I just had this extraordinary vision of Barbie teaching a computer science curriculum to girls everywhere.

One of the artifacts that I've held on to, is my granddad's slide rule. He was an engineer, and I've treasured the slide rule.

As a programmer, I can't think of many artifacts I would be able to give to my daughter, or that she would give to her children. I have kept the old Compaq BASICA reference book that I used as a kid, but without moving parts like a sliderule, it doesn't strike me as cool. It seems like everything is virtual and ephemeral in this time of glass touch screens and constantly upgrading software.

None-the-less -- something tangible that doesn't take up too much space, -- that could be really important to her.

You are right, there is usually more chattiness than in apps where more application logic is handled on the client-side. While there's apps where you absolutely want to minimize that, it's not really a problem in many or even most cases, and many apps have bigger considerations. One big problem in pure client-side coding is that you'll expose more application logic to the client-side, where anyone can snoop it, and need to be more careful with security issues.

You can also do client-side coding much to the extent that you need in Vaadin apps, by implementing complex components or entire views in GWT or JavaScript code, and then just syncronizing the changes as you like. That's actually what you need to do if you want to enable offline mode in Vaadin TouchKit apps.

I wouldn't quite say mouse events, as that includes low-level events such as mouse move events. Vaadin usually sends somewhat higher-level events, such as clicks on button components (not all buttons) and selection changes. You can lessen those by setting components as non-immediate. Sure, there's one case in drag-and-drop handling where even mouse move events can be sent.

Instead of writing JS both on client and server, the Node.js approach, you can write Java on both - that's how Vaadin Framework approaches web applications, by using GWT Java-to-JavaScript compiler for the client-side part. And usually you don't need to write ANY client code, and all client-server communications are completely invisible. You're just writing a UI in Java and can forget most of the client-side peculiarities.

Vaadin is also pretty flexible and allows mixing the approaches to a great extent, allowing JavaScript client-side widgets and other JS integration. You're also free to use other languages than Java for many client-server tasks, such as for REST services.

Not to mention that you can just as well use Scala and such for the server-side.

I keep thinking that the NSA should just open up it's own free public Dropbox/Drive/SkyDrive, so that we can eliminate redundancy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

"You mean, there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies, or hot fudge?"
"Those were thought to be unhealthy, precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true."

Here's my website. I invite anybody to look at the source code, and compare it against your run-of-the-mill WordPress website.

Here are the 249 lines of Python code that I use to render it. In addition to the source code, there are x6 template files (each less than 1KB large), and x1 CSS file (less than 2KB).

What the parent post says, rings true to me.

No need for Django, no need for frameworks, no need for deployment systems beyond DropBox.

"The long term savings in terms of enabling staff to go in and edit stuff live has saved a fortune." -- This especially rings true to me.

"I tried Django and the sheer volume of stuff I needed to do to get the same functionality up was huge and then the staff couldn't edit it because for all that's claimed for Django, there's a big model you have to get in you head before you can start meddling with it, and that means web professionals who cost a lot of money." -- And this too. (And I'm a professional Django developer, by day.)

I heard recently that there are people working on an "Indie Web" concept; I'm all in favor.

...and write a generator, to your own specification.

I put my daughter in front of StarCraft 2 when she was about 5 or 6 years old, and the first thing she did was have the Marines hold a birthday party.

Running and screaming, that's what I'm looking for. So you can bite my shiny metal ass (that I'm gonna build).

Your fellow AI researcher.

Normally, I'd recommend Scratch, but in this case, I recommend: MMF2, by François Lionet and Yves Lamoureux. They really get it, and your son will learn a ton about programming, without deviating from working on games themselves.

I don't know that there ISN'T a von Neumann probe in our solar system. How would we know? The solar system is huge. The probe could be tiny. Again, how would we know? Have we tried communicating with it? Would it try to communicate with us? Or would it report to a nearby star, first, and await instructions delivered after centuries?

I've heard that the radio emissions from Earth are actually really, really weak, and distribute radially. Nobody can hear us out there.

The entire galaxy could be teeming with life, that's communicating point-to-point. Why waste energy in radial communication, when you can just draw a straight line from star to star?

Sometimes, I think, all we need to do, is point a big powerful laser at a nearby star, and request boot-procedure handshaking instructions, from the nearby access point, and then just wait for the signal that inevitably responds, with instructions on how to maintain the communications link.

"Font" is a typographical concept in printing, it doesn't apply to writing by hand, in which you would call them different "scripts" or styles of writing.
But yeah, the article is rubbish, apparently based on translating tekstaus to "texting".

Ah yes, that too, didn't notice that. So, both the /. article and the referred one ARE completely based on a translation error.