[Edu-sig] some Pythonic Math for "code scouts"

[kirby urner]

Lest I be accused of introducing a gender bias in scouting, in looking for
"Waldo" and not "Wendy": in my defense looking for Waldo could be
interesting for any gender and besides, neither method is really the point
as it's an inheritance tree diagram that's sought (per docstring).

Elsewhere in my on-line postings you'll see I'm expecting more innovation
from girl scouts actually, but for anthropological reasons we needn't
tediously reiterate here.

Scouting needn't be gender-segregated in the first place, in principle,
lets be clear.  Nothing in the definition of "scout" implies gender.

If anything, the real bias in "scouting" is towards "youth" (scouts are
young) and I'm not especially fighting that bias (already here when I got
here).[0] A "scout leader" may be on the older side and you may have your
history in scouting on your resume no matter how old you are.

Another Python puzzle I want to see more (that'd work in other languages)
of is where you nest data structures very deeply in an insane one-off sort
of way, and challenge the reader to build a reference to it, whatever "it"
is, perhaps a string literal, a buried "X".  Writing a program to randomly
generate such arbitrarily nested structures, along with a solution, as a
pair, would be a next challenge to tackle.

Such puzzles may already be out there.  I once shared a residence with a
staff writer for Games magazine and was astonished by the breadth of puzzle
in print (I always liked making mazing, sometimes solving them).  I'm less
in the loop than in those days, in that regard.  I was a quick train ride
from Manhattan back them, in the lower rent Jersey City, right off Journal
Square behind the Lowe's.[1]

Kirby

[0] I once participated in swimming pool construction project in
Palestinian Ramallah, where the locals joining us were referred to as
"scouts" in English, which got as all picturing youngsters, but they were
more college through adult, no upper limit on age really.  A different
translation would have less nurtured our unrealistic expectations (the work
was too hard for kids, and at sixteen I was probably the youngest in the
entire camp).  Anyway, my point is the connotation of "scout" in English,
though in a military sense a scout is just anyone "scouting ahead" or
"keeping a lookout" or whatever, very generic role and not always played by
youngsters.  Civilians also "scout" i.e. to be "scouting ahead" needn't
imply the theater has been militarized, so I do not regard "scouting" as
ipso facto "paramilitary", though I fully recognize it has gone in that
direction a lot already in some parts of the world.  Long discussion, maybe
on an anthro list.

[1]  this autobio is partly for the benefit of math-teach readers where
we've been talking about my career as a high school math teacher in Jersey
City (a short career, but not because I hated the job, on the contrary one
of the best ever).


On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 9:39 PM, kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com> wrote:

> """
> More ActiveMath... by K. Urner (c) MIT License
> 4dsolutions.net/ocn : Oregon Curriculum Network
>
> Merit badge activity:  study the Method Resolution Order
> defined below and make a drawing of the inheritance tree,
> with object at the top and ScoutManual at the bottom.
> """
>
> class Cove:
>     def wheresWaldo(self):
>         return "Waldo is in a Cove"
>
> class Island:
>     def wheresWaldo(self):
>         return "Waldo is on an Island"
>
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