Merge remote-tracking branch 'LCTT/master'

published/20190405 Blockchain 2.0 - Ongoing Projects (The State Of Smart Contracts Now) -Part 6.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 [#]: collector: (lujun9972)
 [#]: translator: (wxy)
-[#]: reviewer: ( )
-[#]: publisher: ( )
-[#]: url: ( )
+[#]: reviewer: (wxy)
+[#]: publisher: (wxy)
+[#]: url: (https://linux.cn/article-11013-1.html)
 [#]: subject: (Blockchain 2.0 – Ongoing Projects (The State Of Smart Contracts Now) [Part 6])
 [#]: via: (https://www.ostechnix.com/blockchain-2-0-ongoing-projects-the-state-of-smart-contracts-now/)
 [#]: author: (editor https://www.ostechnix.com/author/editor/)
@@ -12,15 +12,15 @@
 
 ![The State Of Smart Contracts Now][1]
 
-继续我们的[前面的关于智能合约的文章][2]，这篇文章旨在讨论智能合约的形势，重点介绍目前正在该领域进行开发的一些项目和公司。如本系列前一篇文章中讨论的，智能合约是在区块链网络上存在并执行的程序。我们探讨了智能合约的工作原理以及它们优于传统数字平台的原因。这里描述的公司分布于各种各样的行业中，但是大多涉及到身份管理系统、金融服务、众筹系统等，因为这些是被认为最适合切换到基于区块链的数据库系统的领域。
+继续我们的[前面的关于智能合约的文章][2]，这篇文章旨在讨论智能合约的发展形势，重点介绍目前正在该领域进行开发的一些项目和公司。如本系列前一篇文章中讨论的，智能合约是在区块链网络上存在并执行的程序。我们探讨了智能合约的工作原理以及它们优于传统数字平台的原因。这里描述的公司分布于各种各样的行业中，但是大多涉及到身份管理系统、金融服务、众筹系统等，因为这些是被认为最适合切换到基于区块链的数据库系统的领域。
 
 ### 开放平台
 
-诸如 [Counterparty][8] 和 Solidity（以太坊）等平台是完全公用的构建模块，开发者可以以之创建自己的智能合约。大量的开发人员参与此类项目使这些项目成为开发智能合约、设计自己的加密货币令牌系统以及为区块链创建协议以实现功能的事实标准。许多值得称赞的项目都来源于它们。摩根大通派生自以太坊的 [Quorum][9]，就是一个例子。而瑞波是另一个例子。
+诸如 [Counterparty][8] 和 Solidity（以太坊）等平台是完全公用的构建模块，开发者可以以之创建自己的智能合约。大量的开发人员参与此类项目使这些项目成为开发智能合约、设计自己的加密货币令牌系统，以及创建区块链运行协议的事实标准。许多值得称赞的项目都来源于它们。摩根大通派生自以太坊的 [Quorum][9]，就是一个例子。而瑞波是另一个例子。
 
 ### 管理金融交易
 
-通过互联网转账加密货币被吹捧为在未来几年的常态。与此相关的不足之处是：
+通过互联网转账加密货币被吹捧为在未来几年会成为常态。与此相关的不足之处是：
 
 * 身份和钱包地址是匿名的。如果接收方不履行交易，则付款人没有任何第一追索权。
 * 错误交易（如果无法追踪任何交易）。
@@ -32,17 +32,17 @@
 
 ### 金融服务
 
-小额融资和小额保险项目的发展将改善世界上大多数贫穷或没有银行账户的人的银行金融服务。据估计，社会中较贫穷的“无银行账户”人群可以为银行和机构的增加 3800 亿美元收入 [^5]。这一金额取代了通过银行切换到区块链 DLT 预期可以节省的运营费用。
+小额融资和小额保险项目的发展将改善世界上大多数贫穷或没有银行账户的人的银行金融服务。据估计，社会中较贫穷的“无银行账户”人群可以为银行和机构的增加 3800 亿美元收入 [^5]。这一金额要远远超过银行切换到区块链分布式账本技术（DLT）预期可以节省的运营费用。
 
-位于美国中西部的 BankQu Inc. 的口号是“通过身份而尊严”。他们的平台允许个人设置他们自己的数字身份记录，其中所有交易将在区块链上实时审查和处理。在底层代码上记录并为其用户构建唯一的在线标识，从而实现超快速的交易和结算。BankQu 案例研究探讨了他们如何以这种方式帮助个人和公司，可以在[这里][3]看到。
+位于美国中西部的 BankQu Inc. 的口号是“通过身份而尊严”。他们的平台允许个人建立他们自己的数字身份记录，其中所有交易将在区块链上实时审查和处理。在底层代码上记录并为其用户构建唯一的在线标识，从而实现超快速的交易和结算。BankQu 案例研究探讨了他们如何以这种方式帮助个人和公司，可以在[这里][3]看到。
 
-[Stratumn][12] 正在帮助保险公司通过自动执行早期由人类微观管理的任务来提供更好的保险服务。通过自动化、端到端可追溯性和高效的数据隐私方法，他们彻底改变了保险索赔的结算方式。改善客户体验以及显著降低成本，为客户和相关公司带来双赢局面。
+[Stratumn][12] 正在帮助保险公司通过自动化早期由人类微观管理的任务来提供更好的保险服务。通过自动化、端到端可追溯性和高效的数据隐私方法，他们彻底改变了保险索赔的结算方式。改善客户体验以及显著降低成本为客户和相关的公司带来双赢局面。
 
-法国保险公司 [AXA][14] 目前正在试行类似的努力。其产品 [fizzy][13] 允许用户以少量费用订阅其服务并输入他们的航班详细信息。如果航班延误或遇到其他问题，该程序会自动搜索在线数据库，检查保险条款并将保险金额记入用户的帐户。这样就消除了用户或客户在手动检查条款后提出索赔的要求，并且一旦这样的系统成为主流，就不需要长期提出索赔，增加了航空公司的责任。
+法国保险公司 [AXA][14] 目前正在试行类似的努力。其产品 [fizzy][13] 允许用户以少量费用订阅其服务并输入他们的航班详细信息。如果航班延误或遇到其他问题，该程序会自动搜索在线数据库，检查保险条款并将保险金额记入用户的帐户。这样就用户或客户无需在手动检查条款后提出索赔，并且就长期而言，一旦这样的系统成为主流，就增加了航空公司的责任心。
 
 ### 跟踪所有权
 
-理论上可以利用 DLT 中的带时间戳的数据块来跟踪从创建到最终用户消费的媒体。Peertracks 公司 和 Mycelia 公司目前正在帮助音乐家发布内容，而不必担心其内容被盗或被滥用。他们帮助艺术家直接向粉丝和客户销售，同时获得工作报酬，而无需通过权利和唱片公司 [^9]。
+理论上可以利用 DLT 中的带时间戳的数据块来跟踪媒体的创建到最终用户消费。Peertracks 公司和 Mycelia 公司目前正在帮助音乐家发布内容，而不必担心其内容被盗或被滥用。他们帮助艺术家直接向粉丝和客户销售，同时获得工作报酬，而无需通过权利和唱片公司 [^9]。
 
 ### 身份管理平台
 
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@
 
 [Share & Charge][18] ([Slock.It][19]) 是一家欧洲的区块链初创公司。他们的移动应用程序允许房主和其他个人投入资金建立充电站与其他正在寻找快速充电的人分享他们的资源。这不仅使业主能够收回他们的一些投资，而且还允许 EV 司机在其近地域获得更多的充电点，从而允许供应商以方便的方式满足需求。一旦“客户”完成对其车辆的充电，相关的硬件就会创建一个由数据组成的安全时间戳块，并且在该平台上工作的智能合约会自动将相应的金额记入所有者账户。记录所有此类交易的跟踪并保持适当的安全验证。有兴趣的读者可以看一下[这里][6]，了解他们产品背后的技术角度。该公司的平台将逐步使用户能够与有需要的个人分享其他产品和服务，并从中获得被动收入。
 
-我们在这里看到的公司，以及一个很短的正在进行中的项目的清单，这些项目利用智能合约和区块链数据库系统。诸如此类的平台有助于构建一个安全的“盒子”，其中包含仅由用户自己和上面的代码或智能合约访问的信息。基于触发器对信息进行实时审查、检查，并且算法由系统执行。这样的平台具有最小化的人为监督，这是在安全数字自动化方面朝着正确方向迈出的急需的一步，这在以前从未被考虑过如此规模。
+我们在这里看到的公司，以及一个很短的正在进行中的项目的清单，这些项目利用智能合约和区块链数据库系统。诸如此类的平台有助于构建一个安全的“盒子”，其中包含仅由用户自己、其上的代码或智能合约访问的信息。基于触发器对信息进行实时审查、检查，并且算法由系统执行。这样的平台人为监督最小化，这是在安全数字自动化方面朝着正确方向迈出的急需的一步，这在以前从未被考虑过如此规模。
 
 下一篇文章将阐述不同类型的区块链。单击以下链接以了解有关此主题的更多信息。
 
@@ -70,10 +70,10 @@
 
 via: https://www.ostechnix.com/blockchain-2-0-ongoing-projects-the-state-of-smart-contracts-now/
 
-作者：[editor][a]
+作者：[ostechnix][a]
 选题：[lujun9972][b]
 译者：[wxy](https://github.com/wxy)
-校对：[校对者ID](https://github.com/校对者ID)
+校对：[wxy](https://github.com/wxy)
 
 本文由 [LCTT](https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject) 原创编译，[Linux中国](https://linux.cn/) 荣誉推出
 

published/20190622 Open Source Slack Alternative Mattermost Gets -50M Funding.md

@@ -1,18 +1,18 @@
 [#]: collector: (lujun9972)
 [#]: translator: (wahailin)
-[#]: reviewer: ( )
-[#]: publisher: ( )
-[#]: url: ( )
+[#]: reviewer: (wxy)
+[#]: publisher: (wxy)
+[#]: url: (https://linux.cn/article-11014-1.html)
 [#]: subject: (Open Source Slack Alternative Mattermost Gets $50M Funding)
 [#]: via: (https://itsfoss.com/mattermost-funding/)
 [#]: author: (Ankush Das https://itsfoss.com/author/ankush/)
 
-Slack 开源替代品 Mattermost 获得 5000 万美元融资
+Slack 的开源替代品 Mattermost 获得 5000 万美元融资
 ======
  
-[Mattermost][1]，作为 [Slack][2] 的开源替代品，获得了 5000 万美元的B轮融资。这个消息极其令人振奋。
+[Mattermost][1]，作为 [Slack][2] 的开源替代品，获得了 5000 万美元的 B 轮融资。这个消息极其令人振奋。
   
-[Slack][3] 是一个基于云的团队内部沟通协作软件。企业、创业公司、甚至全球化的开源项目都在使用Slack进行同事及项目成员间的沟通。
+[Slack][3] 是一个基于云的团队内部沟通协作软件。企业、初创企业、甚至全球化的开源项目都在使用 Slack 进行同事及项目成员间的沟通。
 
 [Slack 在 2019 年 6 月的估值为 200 亿美元][4]，由此可见其在科技行业的巨大影响，当然也就有更多产品想与之竞争。
 
@@ -20,16 +20,15 @@ Slack 开源替代品 Mattermost 获得 5000 万美元融资
 
 ![][5]
  
-就我个人而言，我并不知道 MatterMost 这个产品。但 [VentureBeat][6] 对这则新闻的报道，激发了我的好奇心。 这次融资由 [Y Combinator’s][7] 与一家新的投资方 BattleVentures 牵头，现有投资者 Redpoint 和 S28 Captial 共同加入。
-
+就我个人而言，我并不知道 MatterMost 这个产品。但 [VentureBeat][6] 对这则新闻的报道，激发了我的好奇心。这次融资由 [Y Combinator][7] 的 Continuity 与一家新的投资方 BattleVentures 领投，现有投资者 Redpoint 和 S28 Captial 共同跟投。
 
 在[公告][8]中，他们也提到：
  
-> 今天的公告中，Mattermost 成为了 YC 历次 B 轮投资中投资额最高的项目。
+> 今天的公告中，Mattermost 成为了 YC 有史以来规模最大的 B 轮投资项目，更重要的是，它是 YC 迄今为止投资额最高的开源项目。
 
 下面是摘自 VentureBeat 的报道，你可以从中了解到一些细节：
 
-> 本次资本注入，是继 2017 年 2 月的种子轮 350 万融资和今年 2 月份的 2000 万 A 轮融资之后进行的，并使得这家总部位于美国加州帕罗奥图(Palo Alto)的公司融资总额达到了约 7000 万美元。
+> 本次资本注入，是继 2017 年 2 月的种子轮 350 万融资和今年 2 月份的 2000 万 A 轮融资之后进行的，并使得这家总部位于美国加州<ruby>帕罗奥图<rt>Palo Alto</rt></ruby>的公司融资总额达到了约 7000 万美元。
  
 如果你对他们的规划感兴趣，可以阅读[官方公告][8]。
 
@@ -41,9 +40,9 @@ Slack 开源替代品 Mattermost 获得 5000 万美元融资
 
 前面已经提到，Mattermost 是 Slack 的开源替代品。
  
-乍一看，它几乎照搬了 Slack 的界面外观，没错，这就是关键所在，你将拥有你乐于使用的软件的开源方案。
+乍一看，它几乎照搬了 Slack 的界面外观，没错，这就是关键所在，你将拥有你可以轻松使用的软件的开源解决方案。
  
-它甚至集成了一些流行的 DevOps 工具，如 Git、Bots 和 CI/CD。除了这些功能外，它还关注安全性和隐私。
+它甚至集成了一些流行的 DevOps 工具，如 Git、自动机器人和 CI/CD。除了这些功能外，它还关注安全性和隐私。
 
 同样，和 Slack 类似，它支持和多种应用程序与服务的集成。
 
@@ -51,15 +50,15 @@ Slack 开源替代品 Mattermost 获得 5000 万美元融资
 
 #### 定价：企业版和团队版
 
-如果你想让 Mattermost 对其托管（或获得优先支持），应选择企业版。但如果你想使用非付费托管，可以下载[团队版][11]，并安装到基于 Linux 的云服务器或 VPS 服务器上。
+如果你希望由 Mattermost 托管该服务（或获得优先支持），应选择其企业版。但如果你不想使用付费托管，可以下载[团队版][11]，并将其安装到基于 Linux 的云服务器或 VPS 服务器上。
  
 当然，我们不会在此进行深入探究。我确想在此提及的是，企业版并不昂贵。
 
 ![][12]
 
-**总结**
+### 总结
 
-MatterMost 无疑相当出色，有了 5000 万巨额资金的注入，对于那些正在寻求安全的并能提供高效团队协作支持的开源通讯平台的开源社区用户，Mattermost 很可能成为下一个大事件。
+MatterMost 无疑相当出色，有了 5000 万巨额资金的注入，对于那些正在寻求安全的并能提供高效团队协作支持的开源通讯平台的用户，Mattermost 很可能成为开源社区重要的部分。
 
 你觉得这条新闻怎么样？对你来说有价值吗？你是否已了解 Mattermost 是 Slack 的替代品？
 
@@ -67,12 +66,12 @@ MatterMost 无疑相当出色，有了 5000 万巨额资金的注入，对于那
 
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
-来源: <https://itsfoss.com/mattermost-funding/>
+via: https://itsfoss.com/mattermost-funding/
 
 作者：[Ankush Das][a]
 选题：[lujun9972][b]
 译者：[wahailin](https://github.com/wahailin)
-校对：[校对者ID](https://github.com/校对者ID)
+校对：[wxy](https://github.com/wxy)
 
 本文由 [LCTT](https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject) 原创编译，[Linux中国](https://linux.cn/) 荣誉推出
 

sources/talk/20190331 Codecademy vs. The BBC Micro.md

@@ -0,0 +1,129 @@
+[#]: collector: (lujun9972)
+[#]: translator: ( )
+[#]: reviewer: ( )
+[#]: publisher: ( )
+[#]: url: ( )
+[#]: subject: (Codecademy vs. The BBC Micro)
+[#]: via: (https://twobithistory.org/2019/03/31/bbc-micro.html)
+[#]: author: (Two-Bit History https://twobithistory.org)
+
+Codecademy vs. The BBC Micro
+======
+
+In the late 1970s, the computer, which for decades had been a mysterious, hulking machine that only did the bidding of corporate overlords, suddenly became something the average person could buy and take home. An enthusiastic minority saw how great this was and rushed to get a computer of their own. For many more people, the arrival of the microcomputer triggered helpless anxiety about the future. An ad from a magazine at the time promised that a home computer would “give your child an unfair advantage in school.” It showed a boy in a smart blazer and tie eagerly raising his hand to answer a question, while behind him his dim-witted classmates look on sullenly. The ad and others like it implied that the world was changing quickly and, if you did not immediately learn how to use one of these intimidating new devices, you and your family would be left behind.
+
+In the UK, this anxiety metastasized into concern at the highest levels of government about the competitiveness of the nation. The 1970s had been, on the whole, an underwhelming decade for Great Britain. Both inflation and unemployment had been high. Meanwhile, a series of strikes put London through blackout after blackout. A government report from 1979 fretted that a failure to keep up with trends in computing technology would “add another factor to our poor industrial performance.”1 The country already seemed to be behind in the computing arena—all the great computer companies were American, while integrated circuits were being assembled in Japan and Taiwan.
+
+In an audacious move, the BBC, a public service broadcaster funded by the government, decided that it would solve Britain’s national competitiveness problems by helping Britons everywhere overcome their aversion to computers. It launched the _Computer Literacy Project_ , a multi-pronged educational effort that involved several TV series, a few books, a network of support groups, and a specially built microcomputer known as the BBC Micro. The project was so successful that, by 1983, an editor for BYTE Magazine wrote, “compared to the US, proportionally more of Britain’s population is interested in microcomputers.”2 The editor marveled that there were more people at the Fifth Personal Computer World Show in the UK than had been to that year’s West Coast Computer Faire. Over a sixth of Great Britain watched an episode in the first series produced for the _Computer Literacy Project_ and 1.5 million BBC Micros were ultimately sold.3
+
+[An archive][1] containing every TV series produced and all the materials published for the _Computer Literacy Project_ was put on the web last year. I’ve had a huge amount of fun watching the TV series and trying to imagine what it would have been like to learn about computing in the early 1980s. But what’s turned out to be more interesting is how computing was _taught_. Today, we still worry about technology leaving people behind. Wealthy tech entrepreneurs and governments spend lots of money trying to teach kids “to code.” We have websites like Codecademy that make use of new technologies to teach coding interactively. One would assume that this approach is more effective than a goofy ’80s TV series. But is it?
+
+### The Computer Literacy Project
+
+The microcomputer revolution began in 1975 with the release of [the Altair 8800][2]. Only two years later, the Apple II, TRS-80, and Commodore PET had all been released. Sales of the new computers exploded. In 1978, the BBC explored the dramatic societal changes these new machines were sure to bring in a documentary called “Now the Chips Are Down.”
+
+The documentary was alarming. Within the first five minutes, the narrator explains that microelectronics will “totally revolutionize our way of life.” As eerie synthesizer music plays, and green pulses of electricity dance around a magnified microprocessor on screen, the narrator argues that the new chips are why “Japan is abandoning its ship building, and why our children will grow up without jobs to go to.” The documentary goes on to explore how robots are being used to automate car assembly and how the European watch industry has lost out to digital watch manufacturers in the United States. It castigates the British government for not doing more to prepare the country for a future of mass unemployment.
+
+The documentary was supposedly shown to the British Cabinet.4 Several government agencies, including the Department of Industry and the Manpower Services Commission, became interested in trying to raise awareness about computers among the British public. The Manpower Services Commission provided funds for a team from the BBC’s education division to travel to Japan, the United States, and other countries on a fact-finding trip. This research team produced a report that cataloged the ways in which microelectronics would indeed mean major changes for industrial manufacturing, labor relations, and office work. In late 1979, it was decided that the BBC should make a ten-part TV series that would help regular Britons “learn how to use and control computers and not feel dominated by them.”5 The project eventually became a multimedia endeavor similar to the _Adult Literacy Project_ , an earlier BBC undertaking involving both a TV series and supplemental courses that helped two million people improve their reading.
+
+The producers behind the _Computer Literacy Project_ were keen for the TV series to feature “hands-on” examples that viewers could try on their own if they had a microcomputer at home. These examples would have to be in BASIC, since that was the language (really the entire shell) used on almost all microcomputers. But the producers faced a thorny problem: Microcomputer manufacturers all had their own dialects of BASIC, so no matter which dialect they picked, they would inevitably alienate some large fraction of their audience. The only real solution was to create a new BASIC—BBC BASIC—and a microcomputer to go along with it. Members of the British public would be able to buy the new microcomputer and follow along without worrying about differences in software or hardware.
+
+The TV producers and presenters at the BBC were not capable of building a microcomputer on their own. So they put together a specification for the computer they had in mind and invited British microcomputer companies to propose a new machine that met the requirements. The specification called for a relatively powerful computer because the BBC producers felt that the machine should be able to run real, useful applications. Technical consultants for the _Computer Literacy Project_ also suggested that, if it had to be a BASIC dialect that was going to be taught to the entire nation, then it had better be a good one. (They may not have phrased it exactly that way, but I bet that’s what they were thinking.) BBC BASIC would make up for some of BASIC’s usual shortcomings by allowing for recursion and local variables.6
+
+The BBC eventually decided that a Cambridge-based company called Acorn Computers would make the BBC Micro. In choosing Acorn, the BBC passed over a proposal from Clive Sinclair, who ran a company called Sinclair Research. Sinclair Research had brought mass-market microcomputing to the UK in 1980 with the Sinclair ZX80. Sinclair’s new computer, the ZX81, was cheap but not powerful enough for the BBC’s purposes. Acorn’s new prototype computer, known internally as the Proton, would be more expensive but more powerful and expandable. The BBC was impressed. The Proton was never marketed or sold as the Proton because it was instead released in December 1981 as the BBC Micro, also affectionately called “The Beeb.” You could get a 16k version for £235 and a 32k version for £335.
+
+In 1980, Acorn was an underdog in the British computing industry. But the BBC Micro helped establish the company’s legacy. Today, the world’s most popular microprocessor instruction set is the ARM architecture. “ARM” now stands for “Advanced RISC Machine,” but originally it stood for “Acorn RISC Machine.” ARM Holdings, the company behind the architecture, was spun out from Acorn in 1990.
+
+![Picture of the BBC Micro.][3] _A bad picture of a BBC Micro, taken by me at the Computer History Museum
+in Mountain View, California._
+
+### The Computer Programme
+
+A dozen different TV series were eventually produced as part of the _Computer Literacy Project_ , but the first of them was a ten-part series known as _The Computer Programme_. The series was broadcast over ten weeks at the beginning of 1982. A million people watched each week-night broadcast of the show; a quarter million watched the reruns on Sunday and Monday afternoon.
+
+The show was hosted by two presenters, Chris Serle and Ian McNaught-Davis. Serle plays the neophyte while McNaught-Davis, who had professional experience programming mainframe computers, plays the expert. This was an inspired setup. It made for [awkward transitions][4]—Serle often goes directly from a conversation with McNaught-Davis to a bit of walk-and-talk narration delivered to the camera, and you can’t help but wonder whether McNaught-Davis is still standing there out of frame or what. But it meant that Serle could voice the concerns that the audience would surely have. He can look intimidated by a screenful of BASIC and can ask questions like, “What do all these dollar signs mean?” At several points during the show, Serle and McNaught-Davis sit down in front of a computer and essentially pair program, with McNaught-Davis providing hints here and there while Serle tries to figure it out. It would have been much less relatable if the show had been presented by a single, all-knowing narrator.
+
+The show also made an effort to demonstrate the many practical applications of computing in the lives of regular people. By the early 1980s, the home computer had already begun to be associated with young boys and video games. The producers behind _The Computer Programme_ sought to avoid interviewing “impressively competent youngsters,” as that was likely “to increase the anxieties of older viewers,” a demographic that the show was trying to attract to computing.7 In the first episode of the series, Gill Nevill, the show’s “on location” reporter, interviews a woman that has bought a Commodore PET to help manage her sweet shop. The woman (her name is Phyllis) looks to be 60-something years old, yet she has no trouble using the computer to do her accounting and has even started using her PET to do computer work for other businesses, which sounds like the beginning of a promising freelance career. Phyllis says that she wouldn’t mind if the computer work grew to replace her sweet shop business since she enjoys the computer work more. This interview could instead have been an interview with a teenager about how he had modified _Breakout_ to be faster and more challenging. But that would have been encouraging to almost nobody. On the other hand, if Phyllis, of all people, can use a computer, then surely you can too.
+
+While the show features lots of BASIC programming, what it really wants to teach its audience is how computing works in general. The show explains these general principles with analogies. In the second episode, there is an extended discussion of the Jacquard loom, which accomplishes two things. First, it illustrates that computers are not based only on magical technology invented yesterday—some of the foundational principles of computing go back two hundred years and are about as simple as the idea that you can punch holes in card to control a weaving machine. Second, the interlacing of warp and weft threads is used to demonstrate how a binary choice (does the weft thread go above or below the warp thread?) is enough, when repeated over and over, to produce enormous variation. This segues, of course, into a discussion of how information can be stored using binary digits.
+
+Later in the show there is a section about a steam organ that plays music encoded in a long, segmented roll of punched card. This time the analogy is used to explain subroutines in BASIC. Serle and McNaught-Davis lay out the whole roll of punched card on the floor in the studio, then point out the segments where it looks like a refrain is being repeated. McNaught-Davis explains that a subroutine is what you would get if you cut out those repeated segments of card and somehow added an instruction to go back to the original segment that played the refrain for the first time. This is a brilliant explanation and probably one that stuck around in people’s minds for a long time afterward.
+
+I’ve picked out only a few examples, but I think in general the show excels at demystifying computers by explaining the principles that computers rely on to function. The show could instead have focused on teaching BASIC, but it did not. This, it turns out, was very much a conscious choice. In a retrospective written in 1983, John Radcliffe, the executive producer of the _Computer Literacy Project_ , wrote the following:
+
+> If computers were going to be as important as we believed, some genuine understanding of this new subject would be important for everyone, almost as important perhaps as the capacity to read and write. Early ideas, both here and in America, had concentrated on programming as the main route to computer literacy. However, as our thinking progressed, although we recognized the value of “hands-on” experience on personal micros, we began to place less emphasis on programming and more on wider understanding, on relating micros to larger machines, encouraging people to gain experience with a range of applications programs and high-level languages, and relating these to experience in the real world of industry and commerce…. Our belief was that once people had grasped these principles, at their simplest, they would be able to move further forward into the subject.
+
+Later, Radcliffe writes, in a similar vein:
+
+> There had been much debate about the main explanatory thrust of the series. One school of thought had argued that it was particularly important for the programmes to give advice on the practical details of learning to use a micro. But we had concluded that if the series was to have any sustained educational value, it had to be a way into the real world of computing, through an explanation of computing principles. This would need to be achieved by a combination of studio demonstration on micros, explanation of principles by analogy, and illustration on film of real-life examples of practical applications. Not only micros, but mini computers and mainframes would be shown.
+
+I love this, particularly the part about mini-computers and mainframes. The producers behind _The Computer Programme_ aimed to help Britons get situated: Where had computing been, and where was it going? What can computers do now, and what might they do in the future? Learning some BASIC was part of answering those questions, but knowing BASIC alone was not seen as enough to make someone computer literate.
+
+### Computer Literacy Today
+
+If you google “learn to code,” the first result you see is a link to Codecademy’s website. If there is a modern equivalent to the _Computer Literacy Project_ , something with the same reach and similar aims, then it is Codecademy.
+
+“Learn to code” is Codecademy’s tagline. I don’t think I’m the first person to point this out—in fact, I probably read this somewhere and I’m now ripping it off—but there’s something revealing about using the word “code” instead of “program.” It suggests that the important thing you are learning is how to decode the code, how to look at a screen’s worth of Python and not have your eyes glaze over. I can understand why to the average person this seems like the main hurdle to becoming a professional programmer. Professional programmers spend all day looking at computer monitors covered in gobbledygook, so, if I want to become a professional programmer, I better make sure I can decipher the gobbledygook. But dealing with syntax is not the most challenging part of being a programmer, and it quickly becomes almost irrelevant in the face of much bigger obstacles. Also, armed only with knowledge of a programming language’s syntax, you may be able to _read_ code but you won’t be able to _write_ code to solve a novel problem.
+
+I recently went through Codecademy’s “Code Foundations” course, which is the course that the site recommends you take if you are interested in programming (as opposed to web development or data science) and have never done any programming before. There are a few lessons in there about the history of computer science, but they are perfunctory and poorly researched. (Thank heavens for [this noble internet vigilante][5], who pointed out a particularly egregious error.) The main focus of the course is teaching you about the common structural elements of programming languages: variables, functions, control flow, loops. In other words, the course focuses on what you would need to know to start seeing patterns in the gobbledygook.
+
+To be fair to Codecademy, they offer other courses that look meatier. But even courses such as their “Computer Science Path” course focus almost exclusively on programming and concepts that can be represented in programs. One might argue that this is the whole point—Codecademy’s main feature is that it gives you little interactive programming lessons with automated feedback. There also just isn’t enough room to cover more because there is only so much you can stuff into somebody’s brain in a little automated lesson. But the producers at the BBC tasked with kicking off the _Computer Literacy Project_ also had this problem; they recognized that they were limited by their medium and that “the amount of learning that would take place as a result of the television programmes themselves would be limited.”8 With similar constraints on the volume of information they could convey, they chose to emphasize general principles over learning BASIC. Couldn’t Codecademy replace a lesson or two with an interactive visualization of a Jacquard loom weaving together warp and weft threads?
+
+I’m banging the drum for “general principles” loudly now, so let me just explain what I think they are and why they are important. There’s a book by J. Clark Scott about computers called _But How Do It Know?_ The title comes from the anecdote that opens the book. A salesman is explaining to a group of people that a thermos can keep hot food hot and cold food cold. A member of the audience, astounded by this new invention, asks, “But how do it know?” The joke of course is that the thermos is not perceiving the temperature of the food and then making a decision—the thermos is just constructed so that cold food inevitably stays cold and hot food inevitably stays hot. People anthropomorphize computers in the same way, believing that computers are digital brains that somehow “choose” to do one thing or another based on the code they are fed. But learning a few things about how computers work, even at a rudimentary level, takes the homunculus out of the machine. That’s why the Jacquard loom is such a good go-to illustration. It may at first seem like an incredible device. It reads punch cards and somehow “knows” to weave the right pattern! The reality is mundane: Each row of holes corresponds to a thread, and where there is a hole in that row the corresponding thread gets lifted. Understanding this may not help you do anything new with computers, but it will give you the confidence that you are not dealing with something magical. We should impart this sense of confidence to beginners as soon as we can.
+
+Alas, it’s possible that the real problem is that nobody wants to learn about the Jacquard loom. Judging by how Codecademy emphasizes the professional applications of what it teaches, many people probably start using Codecademy because they believe it will help them “level up” their careers. They believe, not unreasonably, that the primary challenge will be understanding the gobbledygook, so they want to “learn to code.” And they want to do it as quickly as possible, in the hour or two they have each night between dinner and collapsing into bed. Codecademy, which after all is a business, gives these people what they are looking for—not some roundabout explanation involving a machine invented in the 18th century.
+
+The _Computer Literacy Project_ , on the other hand, is what a bunch of producers and civil servants at the BBC thought would be the best way to educate the nation about computing. I admit that it is a bit elitist to suggest we should laud this group of people for teaching the masses what they were incapable of seeking out on their own. But I can’t help but think they got it right. Lots of people first learned about computing using a BBC Micro, and many of these people went on to become successful software developers or game designers. [As I’ve written before][6], I suspect learning about computing at a time when computers were relatively simple was a huge advantage. But perhaps another advantage these people had is shows like _The Computer Programme_ , which strove to teach not just programming but also how and why computers can run programs at all. After watching _The Computer Programme_ , you may not understand all the gobbledygook on a computer screen, but you don’t really need to because you know that, whatever the “code” looks like, the computer is always doing the same basic thing. After a course or two on Codecademy, you understand some flavors of gobbledygook, but to you a computer is just a magical machine that somehow turns gobbledygook into running software. That isn’t computer literacy.
+
+_If you enjoyed this post, more like it come out every four weeks! Follow[@TwoBitHistory][7] on Twitter or subscribe to the [RSS feed][8] to make sure you know when a new post is out._
+
+_Previously on TwoBitHistory…_
+
+> FINALLY some new damn content, amirite?
+>
+> Wanted to write an article about how Simula bought us object-oriented programming. It did that, but early Simula also flirted with a different vision for how OOP would work. Wrote about that instead!<https://t.co/AYIWRRceI6>
+>
+> — TwoBitHistory (@TwoBitHistory) [February 1, 2019][9]
+
+  1. Robert Albury and David Allen, Microelectronics, report (1979). ↩
+
+  2. Gregg Williams, “Microcomputing, British Style”, Byte Magazine, 40, January 1983, accessed on March 31, 2019, <https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1983-01/1983_01_BYTE_08-01_Looking_Ahead#page/n41/mode/2up>. ↩
+
+  3. John Radcliffe, “Toward Computer Literacy,” Computer Literacy Project Achive, 42, accessed March 31, 2019, [https://computer-literacy-project.pilots.bbcconnectedstudio.co.uk/media/Towards Computer Literacy.pdf][10]. ↩
+
+  4. David Allen, “About the Computer Literacy Project,” Computer Literacy Project Archive, accessed March 31, 2019, <https://computer-literacy-project.pilots.bbcconnectedstudio.co.uk/history>. ↩
+
+  5. ibid. ↩
+
+  6. Williams, 51. ↩
+
+  7. Radcliffe, 11. ↩
+
+  8. Radcliffe, 5. ↩
+
+
+
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+via: https://twobithistory.org/2019/03/31/bbc-micro.html
+
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+选题：[lujun9972][b]
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+
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+[1]: https://computer-literacy-project.pilots.bbcconnectedstudio.co.uk/
+[2]: /2018/07/22/dawn-of-the-microcomputer.html
+[3]: /images/beeb.jpg
+[4]: https://twitter.com/TwoBitHistory/status/1112372000742404098
+[5]: https://twitter.com/TwoBitHistory/status/1111305774939234304
+[6]: /2018/09/02/learning-basic.html
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+[9]: https://twitter.com/TwoBitHistory/status/1091148050221944832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
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