Pro Python remarks to math ed folks (pointers)

[Darrell]

Installed your stuff and changed a few things to get it to work.
Had to add this method too Vector.
   def display(self):
       print self.data

Also changed some of the hardcoded paths.
Then installed a VRML viewer.
I'm digging around for a POV viewer still.

Wow, very cool.

I have a teenager who hates math, maybe this would be useful.


--
--Darrell
Kirby Urner <urner at alumni.princeton.edu> wrote in message
news:37c2a51e.18050990 at news.teleport.com...
>
>
> Some "Python as teaching language" emphasis in my recent
> posts to elsewhere.  For those of you wanting to see how
> I'm using Python with polyhedra, check out:
>
> http://forum.swarthmore.edu/epigone/geometry-research/whelsendsnimp
> http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=516251867&fmt=text
>
> My basic approach is to hit two key topics in tandem in
> K-12:  computer programming and polyhedral geometry:  by
> making polyhedra my paradigm objects (in the OOP sense,
> but also in a literal easy-to-understand sense).
>
> I'll add here (given this ng is for Python speakers) how
> happy I am with operator overloading, which I haven't
> had before, given my own path through the languages has
> so far mostly skirted C/C++.
>
> With a polyhedron object in P (say an icosahedron), Q=P*3
> is another polyhedron (same shape), but 3x larger, and
> the equally simple expression R=Q+v creates polyhedron R
> translated through space by vector v.  Short, sweet, to
> the point.
>
> The fact that a class is built around built-in __dict__
> made it easy to go forward with concepts I'd already used
> in the Java version of this exercise.  I have points A-Z
> as a set of reference points for anchoring a smallish set
> of polyhedra.
>
> In Java, I added lookup strings 'A'-'Z' with their associated
> vectors to a Hashtable.  In Python, a dictionary is even
> easier to use (same idea as Hashtable of course), and, even
> better, such a dictionary is already part of any class.
> Just define A=Vector(xyz=(1,0,0)) and you've got your
> {'A':Object} linkup for free!  Way cool.
>
> Kirby
> Curriculum writer
> Oregon Curriculum Network
> Cc: Synergetics-L at telelists.com
>
> PS:  I've posted to this newsgroup once before so far:
> http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=490567169&fmt=text
>
>