Hello Henry;
Yes, they jump to conclusions, conclusions that are in this case wrong,
which you cannot tell by looking. A little test, no, the willingness to
do a little test, helps to avoid a lot of potholes.
A false intuition I found in some beginner APL classes I taught:
x =:2
y =: x+2
x =: 4
y NB. Most in the class would answer 6.
There is a chance to stimulate a debate that would prove educational; a
sweet spot for when to press Enter.
Henry Rich wrote:
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.
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|\/| Randy A MacDonald | APL: If you can say it, it's done.. (ram)
|/\| ramacd <at> nbnet.nb.ca |
|\ | | The only real problem with APL is that
BSc(Math) UNBF'83 | it is "still ahead of its time."
Sapere Aude | - Morten Kromberg
Natural Born APL'er |
-----------------------------------------------------(INTP)----{ gnat }-
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