Good question, Devon.

Checking the data and its movement around the 3 addons, plus in and out, is
very much on my mind.

No checksums (and I can't really see how to use them). But all calculations
are done by functions with names exe*_cal_, which are the "compiled"
formulas. They could in principle be instrumented.

At present, once a physical constant gets copied into math/uu/uuc.ijs it
becomes anonymous. Hence unchallengeable. What I have in mind is a way to
"drill down" on a displayed quantity, so that clicking on a line of the
t-table would take you to the webpage(s) the figure was copied from, maybe
to the very spot on the page. I would find that reassuring.

Plus it teaches the students to question and check up on the figures they
work with: not whether the science behind them is right, but their very
transcription. Wasn't that the main motive for the Admiralty to fund
Babbage's two Analytical Engines: the scourge of typesetting typos in
mathematical and astronomical tables used in navigation? Long before NASA
lost a Mars lander to a computational error, the Royal Navy was losing
ships that way.

A colleague on a project I worked on, a medical psychologist, told me of
his early experience of programming computers governing life support for
experimental animals being operated upon. Whenever his programs crashed,
he'd get straight to work – and guiltily glancing over his shoulder he'd
see them wheeling out the cat.

Perhaps TABULA ought to carry a health warning: Nothing mission-critical,
please.

Ian Clark

On Fri, 7 Jun 2019 at 22:43, Devon McCormick <[email protected]> wrote:

> Ian - I think your approach of addressing a fraught issue is good for
> generating interest but focusing on basic technical aspects for the purpose
> of checking out Tabula is wise as well.
>
> Does the tool have anything that helps us check the data at some basic
> level, like checksum or something?
>
> I'm out of town now but may be able to look more at this within the week.
>
> Good luck,
>
> Devon
>
> On Fri, Jun 7, 2019 at 4:19 PM 'robert therriault' via Chat <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Same situation for j901, although from the error report it looks like you
> > added a line. J807 seems to load without error.
> >
> > Cheers, bob
> >
> >     load 'math/tabula'
> > |value error: eval
> > |       uvalu=:eval openv
> > |[-1867] /users/bobtherriault/j901/addons/math/uu/uu.ijs
> >    test ''
> > +++ BUILTIN TEST OF UU [CAL, TABULA]
> > --- VERSION of UU -- 2.1.23
> > --- VERSION of CAL -- 2.1.21
> > --- VERSION of TABULA -- 2.1.12
> > --- TP*_z_ paths:
> > ┌────┬────────────────────────────────────────────┐
> > │TPAR│/users/bobtherriault/tabula-user/ttarchive  │
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPAT│/users/bobtherriault/j901/addons/math/tabula│
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPCA│/users/bobtherriault/j901/addons/math/cal   │
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPCL│/users/bobtherriault                        │
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPMC│/users/bobtherriault/j901/addons/math/cal   │
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPMT│/users/bobtherriault/j901/addons/math/tabula│
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPMU│/users/bobtherriault/j901/addons/math/uu    │
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPNG│/users/bobtherriault/j901/addons/math/tabula│
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPSA│/users/bobtherriault/j901/addons/math/cal   │
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPTA│/users/bobtherriault/j901/addons/math/tabula│
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPTT│/users/bobtherriault/tabula-user            │
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPUC│/users/bobtherriault/j901/addons/math/uu    │
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPUF│/users/bobtherriault/j901/addons/math/uu    │
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPUM│/users/bobtherriault/j901/addons/math/uu    │
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPUT│/users/bobtherriault/j901/addons/math/tabula│
> > ├────┼────────────────────────────────────────────┤
> > │TPUU│/users/bobtherriault/j901/addons/math/uu    │
> > └────┴────────────────────────────────────────────┘
> >
> > > On Jun 7, 2019, at 1:11 PM, Ian Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > > Please use pacman to upgrade math/uu to 2.1.23
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
> >
>
>
> --
>
> Devon McCormick, CFA
>
> Quantitative Consultant
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm

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