Top November Posts

November was an interesting month in some ways. It seems that when I really for for an opinion piece it attracts more attention in both readers and comments. At the same time some informational posts quietly attract a lot of readers.

Is Computer Science Dying was the most read and most commented on post largely because it got some good attention from Dzone. Comments from Dzone readers are honest and respectful. Some goods comments were left on this post. Thanks!

Carrot, Stick, Attract, Retain, Boys, Girls which was about attracting more minorities and women - especially women also attracted a fair amount of comments and readers. Not everyone sees the shortage of women as either a problem or something we can or should make extra efforts to do things about.

My Ideal First Programming Language rounds out the top posts in terms of comments last month. I think that anytime you get programmers or other computer scientists to talk about programming languages you'll get at least as many opinions and there are people in the conversation.

Speaking about first languages. Links to My Game Builder (blogged about here in October but still getting a lot of attention) Scratch and Alice were among the most followed links in November. It sure looks like people are looking for innovative ways to teach young people about programming.

The last top November post I'll mention is my comments about the Kindle from Amazon. Robert Scoble added it to his link blog which sent me a few readers. An awful lot of people were doing search engine searches for the Kindle though and that accounted for most of the traffic. That's still a device I think will be interesting to follow BTW. If the Amazon people are reading the Internet discussions and taking them to heart the V2 version might just really be amazing. One commenter pointed out that the Kindle could greatly reduce the weight of elementary school backpacks. There have been some studies that indicate that some children are suffering back problems from too heavy back packs. Could the Kindle be a solution to a health problem? Stranger things have happened.

Thanks again for all of you who stopped by to read, the leave comments or to send me feedback via the connection link. You can also reach me by email at Alfred.Thompson (at) Microsoft.com. 

I am in Texas (near Dallas) this week taking a course. I hope to keep up with blogging and email but course work will take priority during the day.