Tutorial creates confusion about slices

Neil Cerutti horpner at yahoo.com
Wed Apr 25 10:17:50 EDT 2007


On 2007-04-25, Hamilton, William <whamil1 at entergy.com> wrote:
> That's how everything I've ever learned has been taught.  Start
> with a simple explanation that may not be completely accurate
> but is functional, then fill in the details later when there is
> a context to put them in.  The tutorial could start out by
> explaining everything at the implementation level; it doesn't
> because it is a _tutorial_, intended to give new users the
> context they need to understand the more complicated nuances of
> the language.  
>
> If it covered every fiddly little detail, it wouldn't be a
> tutorial.  It would be a language reference document instead.

Presenting a simplified model is a good technique, but when a
simplified model is presented it should be clearly stated wether
or not that model will eventually prove inadequate.

Is the divider-between-elements model presented in the tutorial
really the "best way" to understand half-open range notation?

I vote we change the word "best" to "possible" in the excerpt.

-- 
Neil Cerutti



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