On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 3:00 PM, Oisín <[email protected]> wrote:
> Very nice article. What do you mean by a system-wide executable here,
> though? Could we just check for an attribute "lang" or something, and take
> that to be the interpreter that will execute the (escaped) code in the src
> parameter?
> e.g.
> <eval src="a = rand(99)+1; b = rand(99)+1; puts \"#{a} * #{b} = #{a*b}\""
> lang="ruby"/>
> Mnemosyne could just dump the src value to a temporary file and call the
> specified interpreter (in this case "ruby tmp"), capturing the standard as
> the result of the <eval>?

Well, you could do this. For *some* languages. For some uses. And it
would quickly fall apart when one goes beyond a toy math example - how
does one link in all the libraries one might want to employ or specify
versions?  This approach is not too terrible for one language used in
stereotypical ways, like the current Latex functionality. Whereas if
you simply shelled out to a specified executable, the executable could
be a script for whatever language or a compiled binary or whatever.
It's more flexible.

> While I love the idea, I'm finding it hard to come up with simple-to-write
> dynamic cards that would really be useful, outside of perhaps some
> mathematical things like this or long division.

Nobody has thought much about this sort of thing in an SRS context
before. Basically, one can take any computer-graded set of questions -
increasingly common in education - and turn it into SRS flashcards.
Programming exercises from http://turingscraft.com/ ? English vocab
from AWAD or Wiktionary? Sure. I gave some examples like Go problems,
but maybe those aren't convincing to non-Go players; dynamic cards may
be like Blub* - you have a hard time understanding their value until
you develop them on their own or use them for a problem.

* see http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html & http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BlubParadox

-- 
gwern
http://www.gwern.net

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