Why is there no documentation?

[Paul Schopf]

Videos are cute!  they let ignoramuses start to do things.  But why, oh why, is there no online documentation for Vpython?   (Think I know -- documentation is MUCH, MUCH harder than writing code!)  and maintaining documentation is harder still.

So how do you draw a sphere with a cylinder pointing outwards from 30 degrees N , 50 degrees E with a length of 0.5 times the radius of a sphere????????

[Bruce Sherwood]

Presumably you've been to vpython.org? In the upper left corner is a link named "Documentation". Click that, then click "Full documentation". This full documentation is also provided on the Help menu of the VIDLE editor that is installed with VPython.

[Kevin Karplus]

Bruce, you are so polite!  I would have pointed Paul to http://lmgtfy.com/?q=vpython+documentation

On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 5:28 PM, Bruce Sherwood <bruce.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

Presumably you've been to vpython.org? In the upper left corner is a link named "Documentation". Click that, then click "Full documentation". This full documentation is also provided on the Help menu of the VIDLE editor that is installed with VPython.

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[Bruce Sherwood]

And on the front page of vpython.org, just below the list of videos, is another prominent link to something called "Documentation: Overview, tutorials, and detailed documentation ".

About the only kind of documentation not available (as far as I know) is the kind of class hierarchy reference manual, possibly generated automatically, that many professional programmers like to use.

As for "ignoramuses", one of the largest groups of VPython users are plenty smart college students majoring in science or engineering and enrolled in an intro physics course that introduces them to computational modeling, of central importance to all technological fields but typically neglected in these students' education. It was found experimentally that this group, almost none of whom have ever written a program before, could more easily get started with VPython if the instruction mirrored the use -- that is, the visual work they would be doing was part of the (video) documentation. These people aren't ignoramuses.

[Bruce Sherwood]

Oh, Kevin, that is SPLENDID! It works, too.

[Aaron Titus]

Haha, that is awesome.

AT

[Aaron Titus]

Paul,

Others have posted links to documentation. The documentation is high quality, and there is a plethora of examples that come installed with VPython.

Many of us teach VPython to students who have never programmed before. Both instructional videos and handouts work well, but you need to take time to walk through them. For example, understanding the idea of coordinates and vectors is essential.

I have a pdf at:

https://github.com/atitus/Physics-For-Video-Games/blob/master/notes-and-programs-14-09-12.pdf

that is a collection of programming instructions and notes. I’ve used these with non-science majors. In addition, friends have used it with high school students. I encourage you to start with this pdf if the other online documentation is not serving your needs. To learn VPython and important concepts like vectors, walk through each chapter of the pdf.

Aaron

On Apr 27, 2015, at 6:50 PM, Paul Schopf <paul....@gmail.com> wrote:

Videos are cute!  they let ignoramuses start to do things.  But why, oh why, is there no online documentation for Vpython?   (Think I know -- documentation is MUCH, MUCH harder than writing code!)  and maintaining documentation is harder still.

So how do you draw a sphere with a cylinder pointing outwards from 30 degrees N , 50 degrees E with a length of 0.5 times the radius of a sphere????????