On 9/9/06, Arthur <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > kirby urner wrote: > > > > >import math > >math.cos( 90 * math.degrees) > > > >-- that's what a first class might include. If what stops 'em isn't > >the Python syntax, but the trig, then we go over the trig. Basic > >numeracy. All as a bundle. Not your grandfathers math class (but > >some hoped it'd be for their kids -- remember when the future was, > >well, futuristic?). > >
> How you manage to tangle your sensible and salable ideas into a > rhetorical jumble that makes them sound a lot more dazed, dazzling, > and unsaleable they then are on their merits - confounds me. > What's so unsensible about using Python as a calculator in math class for starters? That's how Guido's tutorial begins. You don't do anything but quote, then launch the following diatribe: > I am convinced that the problem is that you have engaged the wrong > enemy. It is not the school board of Hodunk, Missouri..Talked to with > respect for your joint mission of the welfare of their charges, and your > sensible ideas presented without your form of Princetonian arrogance - > I see a team. I never mentioned fighting a school board in Missouri, now did I. Trying to pull the wool, hey? > Your problem is the radical constructivists. You believe in *typing*, > you talk about *mathematical ideas* - trigonometry, even - rather than > "analytical skills", which of course means everything and nothing at the > same time. I'm willing to compete in this rarified rhetorical way, sure, but more I'm just into making raw_input seem ridiculous and unsophisticated. Combat that however you may. Maybe Ruby has raw_input? > They are better funded. You cannot afford your arrogance if you are at > all serious about competing. But then I don't believe you are actually > trying to win. Would take a kind of discipline that you exhibit does > not interest you. > > Just getting your rocks off? > > Art You presume I'm fighting some school board, whereas in Portland we're just seeing more and more ways to get our open source capital on the map, *and* to save a bundle, by going with free software (not taking credit for all this momentum by the way -- maybe why you think I'm arrogant is because you live on the other coast, the more backward one. :-D). Kirby _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
