Alphanumeric Vs. Numeric Maths
kirby urner
Tamar E. Granor, on an article for FoxPro Advisor, a
software industry magazine for developers using the
FoxPro computer language.
Here's a quote of the last section of the article,
which ran from pg. 48 to 53 (March issue):
"""
Math makeover in the Silicon Forest
I live in Greater Portland, the Silicon Forest. Intel,
Tektronics, Hewlett-Packard, and Symantec all
nest in this area, and Microsoft, near Seattle,
isn't far away.
The high tech sector is now Oregon's biggest employer.
Oregon is like an oil-rich state on the Persian Gulf, except
our wealth, being know-how, is more invisible -- and more
renewable.
I bring up matters economic to give some background as to
why a "math makeover" might be taking hold here out of necessity.
Our employers need computer literate, fast learners who
aren't math phobic. But then, what is mathematics exactly?
Judging from your average textbook, it's pretty much what we
remember from our own K-12 careers (arithmetic, geometry,
algebra, and calculus). But open a VFP manual and you see
operators like DTOT(), ASORT() and PACK. More than just
number crunching or even algebraic manipulation, our busi-
ness world needs full-fledged symbolic processing.
Business rules pertain to alphanumeric, not just numeric
content, and our character sets are becoming increasingly inter-
national. Nor is it just businesses that need large data tables,
relational structures, and class hierarchies. Scientists and engi-
neers work with the same tools. So why postpone much signif-
icant exposure to all of this content until college? Why aren't we
teaching VRML, XML, and SQL in eighth grade? Certainly,
many students are ravenous to learn this stuff, but when do
their teachers have time to learn it all themselves?
"""
Two more paragraphs follow, extolling the virtures of
Visual FoxPro especially in this regard. That was 1999.
Here in 2011, Microsoft has announced its plans to phase
out of the Xbase business (the generic name for the
language of dBase, FoxPro, Clipper and a few others).
My writing jumped tracks during a search period in that
same year, moving from FoxPro to Java and ending up in
Python. I chronicle this trajectory in seven chapters of a
work entitled: "Using Polyhedra to Teach OOP and
Coordinate Geometry Concepts". It begins here:
http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/oop.html (starting with
FoxPro).
Kirby