"But what will most certainly be forgotten is there was a generation of students in the 1980s and 1990s who were encouraged to use flow charts, long after the reason for using them had disappeared."
I don't know if I entirely agree with his conclusion. The smartest people I know code with a pen and paper. When they're on the bus or subway. When relaxing, or thinking carefully while away from a computer.
Those who program in the shower and then write it down after before they forget. Analogue programming tools (pan/paper) are great tools.
I thought the article was going to end with him pointing out that he found a great practice that we can all benefit from now. Planning code ahead of time is still better than typing away, we're just not forced to do it anymore.
The mapping plugins are truly impressive but, personally, I'm looking forward to making use of the hexbin plugin and testing out the new transition chaining.
Nice work! The background information at the start covering the Stanford Visualization Group and Ben Fry's approach to Data Visualization are very nice touches
I knew someone who handed these straws out in Africa a few years back: http://www.gizmag.com/go/4418/ They are simple and inexpensive but they perfectly filer out the larvae from untreated water.
I'm sure he'd be super impressed to see how dramatically the numbers have fallen.
More of an observation than anything else. I don't actually use PHP but find these recent PHP focused articles are helping me learn at thing or two about languages I do use.
Their business model depends on their ability to teach and then connect students with hiring employers (in interviews they indicated their business plan is to generate revenue through recruitment). Whether accredited or not, as a student, what's good for Udacity is good for me.
The professors are also well respected brand names in their own right. Having your introduction to probabilistic robots come from Thrun to me carriers weight
From an economic standpoint it's not inflation you need to factor in it's the reduction in cost of production over 500 years (assuming away any issues with the time scale the author presents). Also known as deflation which is in fact a good thing (sorry Chicago School, more for less is a good thing).
Over time advances in technology and increases in capital (capital defined as production goods here not cash) tend to dramatically reduce the cost of production.
Not to mention the insane decrease in the cost of raw materials once you start collecting from asteroids (again assuming we're 500 years out and can build a moon sized ship we can certainly snag an asteroid or two for materials).