[Edu-sig] re: Terminology question: just operator overriding?

[Simon Burton]

On Sun, 29 Jun 2003 13:49:04 -0700
"Kirby Urner" <urnerk@qwest.net> wrote:

> At 10:42 PM 6/27/2003 -0400, Arthur wrote:
> 
> 
> >OSCON, I'm thinking.
> >
> >Do we get a preview?
> 
> Mostly it's about how this thinking in terms of objects is
> generic and powerful enough to deserve a bigger footprint
> in K-12, and that traditional math concepts might be well
> served by these same metaphors (math objects, defined by
> class blueprints, with instances containing specific state
> info -- e.g. fractions, polynomials, vectors etc.).  Python
> makes these metaphors concrete.
> 

Yes, i agree, in theory.

I wrote the following some time ago for edu-sig, better let it loose now.

I think mathematicians
could really go for python's relaxed typing as it closely models how they think
about their symbols. "If an object can do this this and this then look at how this works",
rather than "if an object is a blah then look at what it can do".
This is what Michael Jackson (in "Software Requirements & Specifications") 
writes about mathematicians; that they "forget" what the symbols mean.

Then again, there is the "old school" set-theory camp, who seem to think that there
really is something called a number, and bags of fire trucks are different (but isomporphic).

Conway wrote a great manifesto in his "on numbers and games" book, declaring a freedom from
set theory. Kirby's work also reminds me of more recent Conway: "the book of numbers".

best regards,

Simon.


-- 
Simon Burton, B.Sc.
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