Account Options

  1. Sign in
The old Google Groups will be going away soon, but your browser is incompatible with the new version.
Google Groups Home
« Groups Home
comp.lang.lisp
+ new post
About this group
Subscribe to this group
This is a Usenet group - learn more
Message from discussion Counting occurences
The group you are posting to is a Usenet group. Messages posted to this group will make your email address visible to anyone on the Internet.
Your reply message has not been sent.
Your post was successful
 
From:
To:
Cc:
Followup To:
Add Cc | Add Followup-to | Edit Subject
Subject:
Validation:
For verification purposes please type the characters you see in the picture below or the numbers you hear by clicking the accessibility icon. Listen and type the numbers you hear
 
Tim Bradshaw  
View profile  
 More options Jun 20 2010, 4:56 am
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
From: Tim Bradshaw <t...@tfeb.org>
Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 09:56:36 +0100
Local: Sun, Jun 20 2010 4:56 am
Subject: Re: Counting occurences
Print | View thread | Show original | Report this message | Find messages by this author
On 2010-06-19 15:42:50 +0100, Tamas K Papp said:

> OTOH, I don't deny the usefulness of the things you mention, I just
> don't think that they are that useful when one is first introduced to
> computers.

I think this is a bit like teaching mathematics.  If you started off
teaching people about fields[*] you're going to have a catastrophe
(tragically, there is quite good data about this sort of thing,
following the "new mathematics" teaching movement in the 60s and 70s: I
don't think they started with fields, but they did do a lot of set
theory and group theory).

Of course, these concepts are terribly important - you can't get very
far in theoretical physics without a good grounding in group theory and
differential geometry - but that doesn't mean you should turn things
inside out, because you also can't get very far in theoretical physics
without the kind of aggressive numeracy which you only get by just
spending a lot of time playing with sums.  And most people who aren't
theoretical physicists can get by just fine without group theory and
differential geometry, but would be helped enormously by being a lot
more numerate.

There's an obvious analogy to teaching programming here (though the
situation is worse there than it is with maths for various reasons).

--tim

[*] Don't pick me up on this: my memory is that a field is the right
model for reals under the normal operations, but I may be wrong - pick
the right model if so.


 
You must Sign in before you can post messages.
To post a message you must first join this group.
Please update your nickname on the subscription settings page before posting.
You do not have the permission required to post.
Create a group - Google Groups - Google Home - Terms of Service - Privacy Policy
©2013 Google