On Fri, 14 Feb 2014 19:00:36 -0500, Ned Batchelder wrote: > On 2/14/14 4:43 PM, Marko Rauhamaa wrote: >> Chris Angelico<ros...@gmail.com>: >> >>> >be careful of simplifications that will cause problems down the line. >> Sure. Let it be said, though, that sometimes you learn through >> inaccuracies, a technique used intentionally by Knuth's TeXBook, for >> example. In fact, you get through highschool mathematics successfully >> without knowing what numbers and variables actually are. >> >> > Yes, sometimes for teaching reasons, you have to over-simplify or even > introduce artificial constructs. I'd recommend acknowledging them as > such.
The mathematician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen call these "lies for children". They don't mean it as a pejorative. In fact, calling them "lies for children" is itself a lie for children :-) (Lies for children are not lies, nor are they just for children.) -- Steven -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
