Hi all, The context for my recent messages to the list is that I'm thinking about courses for next year, and I'm thinking about the intersections of data analysis/visualization, modeling, and HtDP-ish introductions to programming.
I like NetLogo (https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/). I don't want to introduce students to programming in NetLogo. While it is easy to attach (say) a slider to a variable in a simulation, and it is easy to plot (say) the population of an agent in the microworld, it is hard to then analyze that data. There's an R extension that embeds a headless NetLogo in R. I have even less desire to introduce students to R, let alone the complex amalgamation of the two. Racket has all the tools I need. The Universe/Big Bang model seems like there's already an infrastructure in place for supporting a functional miroworld-style animation. (Or, I could go down the Processing path and hide things behind a setup/draw, or I could go down the Greenfoot path, and have student objects inherit from a base class that is microworld/animation ready.). There's ample support for data representation, analysis, and visualization. Every language abstraction I could want is somewhere in the box. I know it is a classic mistake to reinvent things that exist, but I feel like the tools I want for an environment for introducing programming in a principled way, and allowing students to engage in microworld simulations and their analysis, are all here and within reach. I thought I'd float it to this list, however, so that if there's any "we tried that," or "you might look at" type suggestions, I could get those before I start sinking time into this exploration. Cheers, Matt -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Racket Users" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to racket-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
