On Wed, Sep 20, 2017 at 12:24 AM, D'Arcy Cain <da...@vybenetworks.com> wrote: > On 09/19/2017 03:07 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote: >>> >>> How relevant is the "people use calculators to do arithmetic" argument >>> today? Okay, so I'm old and cynical, but I know [young] people who >>> don't (can't?) calculate a gratuity without an app or a web page. >> >> >> Which is a form of calculator. People still learn to use calculators at >> school, they still use them at work. They use Excel, which is prone to > > > Wow. I still remember decrying the use of calculators in school. It seemed > like the loss of actual math understanding. When I was young (and not > running from dinosaurs) we learned the addition and multiplication tables by > heart (and received a few sore knuckles while we struggled) and then learned > to do math by paper and pencil. When it was time for a mechanical aid we > got a slide rule. I truly believe that doing so gave me the best > understanding of math that I could get. Now, of course, I use calculators > and computers but I still understand the theory behind what I am doing.
I learned math the same way - and also a lot of algebra. I was permitted to use a programmable calculator (on a PC) in high school but only if I programmed it myself using primitives, which meant that I had to prove that I'd mastered the math. Ended up with a whole bunch of handy features that a typical calculator wouldn't have. > To this day while writing code I will actually put pen to paper in order to > check that my program is doing the correct calculations. Pen and paper are not my things, but if I have to manually check something, I'll do it. Usually with a REPL or something. ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
