[Edu-sig] Math + Python: reviewing some themes (long)

[David Joyner]

On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 10:32 PM, David MacQuigg
<macquigg at ece.arizona.edu> wrote:
> michel paul wrote:
>>
>> Recently I've found Sage <http://sagemath.org> invaluable for the purpose
>> of getting computational thinking into the math curriculum.  I've spent the
>> last year figuring out how to harness Sage in class, and it is paying off.
>>  The difficulty with a pure Python approach has been that it seems so
>> foreign to everyone from kids through administrators, it doesn't look like
>> anything that gets tested on state standards, and it seems like 'hard work'
>> when we already have these nifty hand-helds that graph any function you
>> want.  However, the power of Sage blows any graphing calculator, even the
>> new Inspires, out of the water.  Simultaneously, you can program in pure
>> bare-bones Python within Sage.  So I have found it invaluable to capitalize
>> on the power of Sage to serve as a way to introduce into math classes the
>> value of the ability to think in pure Python.
>
> Nice graphics is definitely a key requirement for any tool I would consider
> in an introductory course.
>
> I'm not familiar with Sage, but I wonder if adding a few packages to "pure
> Python" would do the same.  I'm looking now at NumPy and MatPlotLib in a
> proposal for "Introduction to Scientific Computing", currently taught using
> C with some addons for plotting.  The class is a joint effort between our
> Astronomy and Physics departments.
>
> The advantage of Python/Numpy/MatPlotLib is that what students learn of
> Python will be useful beyond just math and science.  I think of Sage as just
> a replacement for MatLab, not something I would use in programming my mail
> server.
>
> Anyone with experience using these tools?


Yes, I have used Sage a lot and agree with what Michel Paul has said about it.


>
> -- Dave
>
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