Ric speaks for me here. I add that most early students don't imagine that
5 can anything but an atom or 1 2 3 anything but a list. So they never think to ask. When they pick up the language by using it, as we do in my beginners class, they easily jump to conclusions. Henry Rich > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sherlock, Ric > Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 4:11 PM > To: Programming forum > Subject: RE: [Jprogramming] Difference between 5^100x and x: 5^100 > > ---Randy MacDonald wrote: > > (I'll leave the irony of non-programmers thinking they can > > get a handle on a programming language aside.) > > Surely programmers have to come from somewhere?! > > > How do they explain their confusion, if not as a sign they could use > > some tools to look deeper? > > > > I also am thinking that $x is too basic and too important a > > concept that really shouldn't wait for spontaneous discovery. > > 'What is its shape?' seems like something an instructor would > > use to cue students. > > I'm sure any J/APL course would deal with the concept of > shape/rank explicitly, however that doesn't mean the student > will immediately recognise from then on when to expect a list > vs a single row table. If display colour of an array in the > session could be configured based on its rank, I think that > would be a nice visual clue to remind the student (or even > programmer!) that a result may not be what they expected. I > imagine it may well circumvent a good deal of frustration at times. > > As for "where does it end?", given that this would be > user-configurable (exactly as it is currently > user-configurable to show verbs vs nouns vs adverbs in a > different colour), you can decide yourself where it ends. > > > Henry Rich wrote: > > > These are non-programmers who have no idea that they need > > > to dissect anything. Getting $x to occur to the average student > > > would be far too much to hope for. > > > > > > Let the user specify as many colors as he cares to. As many > > > different ranks can be distinguished as her heart desires. > > > > > > No way to tell the rank of an empty, but the rest is worth doing. > > > > > >---Randy MacDonald wrote: > > >> An interesting idea, but where does it end? Do we need to > > >> immediately > > >> see the difference between, for example, i. 2 2 and i. 1 1 1 > > >> 2 2 which > > >> both have the same display value. Is $x too much of a bother for > > >> students who need to dissect a value? I sure hope not. > > >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see > http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
