Multiplication [was Re: Late-binding of function defaults]

[Laura Creighton]

In a message of Thu, 26 Nov 2015 05:09:13 +1100, "Steven D'Aprano" writes:
>On Thu, 26 Nov 2015 02:59 am, Laura Creighton wrote:
>
>> The great sticking point for the children I am teaching is
>> '*' means multiplication.  You can really see that some people
>> have to make extensive mental modifications in order to handle
>> the concept that mathematical truths are expressed in linguistic
>> and orthographic conventions, and that one can swap out a particular
>> convention 'x means multiply' and swap in another one '* means
>> multiply' while leaving the underlying truth unchanged.
>
>Wow. What age children are you talking about?

12 and 13 and 14 year olds. Smart 12, 13 and 14 year olds.

They want to build web servers and host pictures of their pets.
and use the gimp to do image manipulation like crazy. They are
as interested in art as much as, or perhaps even more so than
in programming -- they just need to learn enough programming to
get to make the art and serve it up.

Designing your own Magic The Gathering cards, which has manipulated
pictures of your friends on them, and then using them to play games 
with said friends has been the craze since September.

It's not that the idea of we will use '*' is hard, but if you have
never thought about the difference between THE TRUTH and the notation
used to express the truth before, then well, you may need some time
to get used to the idea.

Laura