Fortran, Python, Lisp, and games
Notes on Fortran
As a computational physicist using Fortran for nearly 20 years (since 2000), I summarize what I know about Fortran and what features are most often used in practical programming.
Notes on Python
Python is a popular programming language, which is now so popular that every scientist needs to know a little bit of Python, just like that a scientist needs to know English. Here is my note on Python
Notes on Lisp/Scheme
Lisp is the second-oldest high-level programming language (behind Fortran). Richard Stallman stated in one of his articles: “The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't know what it means for a programming language to be powerful and elegant. Once you learn Lisp, you will see what is lacking in most other languages.” I am curious about this, which motivated me to begin to learn a little bit of Lisp in September of 2015. Here are my notes on Lisp
HTML5 Canvas + JavaScript
When I worked at University of Colorado Boulder, my office is on the same floor of Physics Education interactive simulation group. This group develops interactive educational tools for high school students and teachers. They primarily use HTML5 Canvas + JavaScript so that their tools can be widely accessible. John and Chris are developers in this group. We often talk about HTML5 Canvas + JavaScript, which reminds me to learn a little bit about programming in JavaScript.
Fig. Sun-Earth-Moon system animation using HTML5 Canvas + JavaScript. [source code for producing this animation: main.js] In the animation, the ratio of the Moon orbital period to Earth orbital period is 1:12, which is close to the correct value. The ratio of the Moon radius to the Earth radius is also close to the correct value, i.e., 0.27. Taking the Earth size shown in the animation as a reference, the distance between the Moon and Earth is decreased by a factor of 30. The size of the Sun and the distance between the Sun and Earth are reduced by a factor of 50 and 5000, respectively.
Open source games
This is my daughter's favorite game when she was 5 years old. It supports local Multiplayer mode and this is one of the reasons that she loves this game because we can play together and it's fun