Tag: csedweek

What were your #FirstSevenLanguages?

My computer geek colleagues are boasting about their humble beginnings by sharing lists of their first seven programming languages. You can find these under the hashtag #FirstSevenLanguages. COBOLPL/1SASIFPSAPL370 AssemblerCSQLLisp#FirstSevenLanguages — Paul Kent (@hornpolish) August 16, 2016 From what I’ve seen of these lists, the programming languages that appear are very […]

The post What were your #FirstSevenLanguages? appeared first on The SAS Dummy.

Why "programmer" is not in my job title

There are two activities which, when taken in combination, have occupied the vast majority of my working hours for the past 20 years: writing computer programs and writing…well, just writing. During my college years I completed my degree with a double-major: Computer Science and English. (My English degree has a […]

Too many pies can be hard to digest

On his SAS and R blog, Ken K. recently posted an example of a visualization technique called “small multiples”. In this exercise, Ken shows the programming technique for replicating a particular series of pie charts in R as well as in SAS. It’s a useful exercise to learn from, but […]

Computer Science is not just for basement dwellers

When I was a teenager in the 1980s I purchased my first computer: a TI-99/4A. (Wow, TI’s version numbers are more confusing than ours!) I had several friends who had other brands of computers, including the TRS-80 (affectionately known as the “trash 80”) and the Commodore 64. Despite our divisions […]

Pop Quiz for Computer Science Education Week

I helped to write a quiz for the Computer Science Education Week promotions that were featured on our company intranet. Do you fancy yourself as a Comp-Sci aficionado? Let’s see how you do with these.

1. Which achievement is Charles Babbage most…

Computer Science isn’t just for geeks anymore

Computer science is more than the pursuit of “let’s see what we can make this computer do.” If that’s your only goal, then you might make a fine computer geek, but a lousy computer scientist. In her blog post for Computer Science Education Week,…

What’s my line? (CSEdWeek edition)

Author note: I’m “replaying” this post in honor of Computer Science Education Week. It originally appeared here over 3 years ago.

Today was “career day” in my daughter’s 3rd grade classroom. A few privileged parents were invited to attend and …