On 6/30/2017 1:07 PM, Irv Kalb wrote:
Thanks to everyone who responded to my question about teaching the range
function.
range is a class, not a function in the strict sense.
Classes represent concepts. Instances of classes represent instances of
the concept. Range represent the concept 'arithmetic sequence', a
sequence of numbers with a constant difference. To form an arithmetic
sequence, start with a number and keep adding a constant.
Surely, schoolkids still have experience doing this, counting up or down
by a number: 0,3,6,9,12,15...; 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0
'liftoff'; 99 bottles of beer. Counting down from 100 by a larger number
is an old challenge. 100, 97, 94, 91, 88/
I particularly like the ideas of using the words "collection" and "sequence"-
those seem to be very clear.
In my curriculum, I first go through a in detail discussion of the need for,
the syntax of and the usage of lists.
'list' represents the more general concept 'mutable sequence of
arbitrary information objects'.
--
Terry Jan Reedy
--
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