[Edu-sig] Endlessly looping Pythonic mathematics (hypertoon city!)

[kirby urner]

Very typical routine Math Forum sharing of my Pythonic Mathematics:
http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=4780241

No Arthur in center ring yet.  I invited him to join me in the big
time tent, having already proved his irascibility and street cred as a
tough-minded New Yorker here on edu-sig.

I think one reason my Pythonic mathematics approach may not be more
popular in the Python community is it requires no changes to Python,
no improvements of exactly the kind edu-siggers are into, if they've
gone so far to dive head first into Python.

Like *of course* we need improvements.

However, where I'm starting is with over-thick antediluvian K12 and
community college math texts, and TI calculators.  I'm in the sewer in
other words, dealing with the stench of dead culture, static for
decades, toxic to most kids (the docile ones gravitate to cube farms,
a kind of Matrix for them, while another generation of zombie teacher
gets certified to continue the forced-march sleep walk towards
oblivion (good scifi spin, no?)).

With Python in the picture, there's no way to go but up (towards
higher quality) and it's a long time before we hit the kind of ceiling
the pydev types might care about.  Just saying "let's talk about
mathematics as an extensible type system" after deriving Monkey, Dog
and Human from a common Mammal class, is a real eye-opener for them,
and it only takes a few minutes, especially with the high quality
cartoons.

So there's really no contest.  Pythonic math is better.  And there's
plenty of it on the web ready to go.  Any enterprising teacher with
Internet access is on a launchpad already.

So that's really the problem:  there's nothing left to brainstorm (I'm
kidding, but it can feel that way some days).  The ducks are already
all in a row, in some static lineup.

So it's just the boring implementation part that's slow and unfinished
(runtime), waiting for more so-called mathematics teachers to care
about computers, let alone programming, let alone some language that
sounds like it might bite.

Sigh.

Twiddling thumbs.

Doing nothing.

Kirby