Ted Kosan wrote: > Nils wrote: > >> Scientific calculator programs already abound. > > What I like about a SAGE-based calculator is that it can be advertised > as being among the most powerful scientific calculators in the world. > People can be told that this calculator is like the wardrobe in the > Narnia series. When people use this calculator, its like falling into > a mathematical Narnia that is as rich and interesting as Narnia > itself. The other-worldly people who built the "calculator" (SAGE) > can be thought of as living inside of the calculator and anyone who > uses SAGE can enter that world and communicate with the world's > creators :-) > > > >> As a gentle >> introduction to sage, you might want to consider including a side- >> window where the sage commands that effect the same computation scroll >> by. That way, one could use it as a "scientific calculator-to-sage" >> translator and people might be able to pick up sage syntax while >> typing in on a familiar calculator. > > This is an excellent idea :-) > > My goal with this specific calculator is to change it into something > that progressively exposes SAGE functionality until the user has > evolved to the point of being an actual SAGE user. For example, I > would like to change the memory functionality so that the results of > calculations are saved in SAGE variables. I would also like to allow > the user to bind SAGE scripts to the unused buttons of the calculator.
I like the direction you advocate (progessively exposing Sage). In middle and high school, I was introduced to a lot of math by reading my calculator manuals (well, at least it was a lot to me then!). Pressing a button on the calculator made me curious about what in the world standard deviation was, which led me to the manual, which fortunately listed the formula and a terse description of the quantities involved. Then I had to figure out the formula. Then came the "why?" questions. It was very exciting to me in a school that didn't teach calculus and had no real computer classes. But then again, I'm a geek :). But seriously, I think I would have loved learning about abstract algebra and category theory and graph theory, for example, if I had been exposed to Sage in high school. And I probably would have learned how to program in python then, instead of trying to wrap my head around C++! -Jason --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
