I pretty much agree with Arthur that CS needs grist for its mill, and geometry and mathematics are good suppliers.
I would also turn that around and go with Scott's point that CS is not alone in needing grist: geometry and mathematics benefit by having CS supply context and applications. For example, a purist mathematician might scorn an approach to the concept of vectors that uses Python code as a means to communicate just what a vector *is* i.e. uses a computer language to help anchor a mathematical generality. However, not being a purist, I think such cross-breeding begets many positive synergies. We get to use string substitution to generate scene description language, directly from our Python vector class, as food for POV-ray.[1] Python and POV-ray are wonderful and powerful tools. It hardly makes sense to teach mathematics/geometry without these tools, or tools like them, if the requisite tech is available. They're free, after all. In sum, it makes plenty of sense to teach CS while importing from other fields (I'd argue that Knuth makes extensive use of pre-CS mathematics), and it makes just as much sense teach math and geometry while importing from CS. The advantages of a cultivating a math/CS hybrid for use in present and future curricula are just too great to ignore. Why rip ourselves off unnecessarily? We should continue this lineage, which is already a tradition, stretching back to before Python was born. Kirby Related thread @ Math Forum (math-teach list): http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=3934957&tstart=0 [1] >>> reload(satacad) <module 'satacad' from 'D:\Python24\lib\site-packages\satacad.py'> >>> from satacad import Vector, Edge >>> v0 = Vector((1,1,1)) >>> v1 = Vector((1,2,-3)) >>> v2 = v0 + v1 >>> e = Edge(v2,v0) >>> e Edge <2, 3, -2>, <1, 1, 1> >>> e.write() 'cylinder <2, 3, -2>, <1, 1, 1>, 0.1 pigment { color Red }' >>> v0 Vector <1, 1, 1> >>> v2*3 Vector <6, 9, -6> class Vector(object): color = 'Red' def __init__(self, xyz): self.xyz = xyz def write(self): basic = "cylinder <0,0,0>, <%s,%s,%s>, 0.1" % self.xyz return "%s %s" % (basic, "pigment { color %s }" % self.color) def __repr__(self): return "Vector <%s, %s, %s>" % self.xyz def __mul__(self, scalar): xyz = tuple([scalar * i for i in self.xyz]) return Vector(xyz) def __add__(self, other): xyz = tuple([ i+j for i,j in zip(self.xyz, other.xyz)]) return Vector(xyz) def _get_xyz(self): return '<%s, %s, %s>' % self.xyz coords = property(_get_xyz) class Edge(object): color = 'Red' def __init__(self, v0, v1): self.v0 = v0 self.v1 = v1 def __repr__(self): return "Edge %s, %s" % (self.v0.coords, self.v1.coords) def write(self): basic = "cylinder %s, %s, 0.1" % (self.v0.coords, self.v1.coords) return "%s %s" % (basic, "pigment { color %s }" % self.color) _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
