[Edu-sig] Python Epistemology

[michel paul]

This was the title of a 5-minute 'lightening talk' by Allen Downey, author
of Think Python
<http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkpython/html/index.html>, during
the educational summit here at PyCon. Main points:

*

   - Nat
   ural L
   ang
   uage
   : expressive and readable, but verbose and imprecise.
   - Math
   ematical notation
   : concise and precise, but not readable or executable.
   - M
   ost
   programming languages: precise and executable, but verbose and not
   readable.


Hmmm ... can anyone think of an expressive, readable, concise, precise, and
executable symbolic language? : )

He went on to show a traditional mathematical formula representing Bayesian
inference and compared it to the corresponding Python code. The Python code
was similar to natural language and represented a flow of ideas. It was
comprehensible. His point was that we often think we need to first express
our ideas in traditional mathematical notation and then translate the math
into executable code. But his point was no, we can code our ideas directly.
It is a new kind of mathematical expression.

I was so delighted to hear this, as these are the conclusions I have come
to as well. It's absolutely true that coding reflectively helps clarify
one's ideas, and this is why it belongs in education. I've repeatedly had
the experience that coding something I had long taken for granted in math
got me to see it in a new light. I've come to view traditional math syntax
as a kind of clever shorthand we developed before we had computers. I think
the traditional syntax creates a kind of cognitive illusion in students and
teachers that that's 'really' the math.
And then throwing calculators into the mix just solidifies the illusion.
Everyone in K-12, students and teachers, thinks that the math is 'really'
on a piece of paper, in traditional notation, and that the technology is
something on the side we turn to in order to help us get the math onto the
paper when the calculations get too tough. I think that picture is flawed
and antiquated. The technology itself is the new paper. Computational
languages are the new algebra.
*

PyCon was amazing. It was my first one. Very inspiring. Time definitely
well spent.

-- 
Michel

===================================
"What I cannot create, I do not understand."

- Richard Feynman
===================================
"Computer science is the new mathematics."

- Dr. Christos Papadimitriou
===================================
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