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Why do we still teach people to calculate?

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Re: Why do we still teach people to calculate?

#71

Post by anon291 »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #69
anon291 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, writing code is not difficult. Understanding what it's actually doing is the hard part. Moreover, understanding how to write code that reasons about code (and higher) is when you start to need computer science, or really just axiomatic systems (math).

> At the end of the day, writing code is not difficult. Understanding what it's actually doing is the hard part. That sounds nice in the abstract, but in practice it's slow going trying to do web dev when your experience is nothing but command line C++.

I guess my honest answer is that web dev is very far removed in general from computer science and touches on design, marketing, etc, more than computer science. There's computer science in the back end and in the implementation of the front end, but like a significant portion of web dev is just aesthetics, not any kind of CS work. Perhaps there should be someone making that obvious at some point.

Re: Why do we still teach people to calculate?

#72

Post by pklausler »

wongarsu wrote: post #57
ComposedPattern wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the schools I'm familiar with, this isn't really a skill that's taught. The emphasis is on carrying out steps correctly on paper. Making a good estimate without showing work would definitely be frowned upon.

In Germany this was part of the physics curriculum. It made sense since order-of-magnitude estimations constantly come up naturally in all fields of physics, whether you are asking "is this plausibly possible", "what kind of instrument do I need for this measurement" (and later "can we even measure this in this setup") or "are the results of my experiment plausible". There's a reason we joke that to the physicist g=1…

Once you learn how to use a slide rule to estimate a calculation to just one or two significant digits, you no longer need the slide rule.

Re: Why do we still teach people to calculate?

#73

Post by autokad »

avemg wrote: post #40
autokad wrote: post #27

to me this seems very ill-thought through, and doesn't feel like they actually remember what math was like. they are suggesting letting the computers do the computation part, but we already do that once that skill has been mastered. i.e.: simple calculators are allowed in calculous exams. the problem with bad ideas in education is the system might be stupid enough to follow through with it, like that new math nonsens…

I spent years having a negative opinion of that same "new math nonsense"; my only experience with it being viral examples of its worst excesses. But then I had kids in elementary school and saw it up close every day. It was weird and frustrating to me as a child of the 80s, but eventually I came to see that it was teaching approaches to problem solving that I was intuitively using myself. There's still rote memorizat…

I think there is a huge problem when parents or other adults can't sit down with the kids and help them with their homework. whomever thought that was a good idea should be bared from all education decisions ever

Re: Why do we still teach people to calculate?

#74

Post by akira2501 »

throwway120385 wrote: post #66
akira2501 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and finding the LCD and GCD of fractions to read a tape measure in US customary units. Well, that's what tolerances are for. I don't need a perfectly accurate answer. Just one that's within 1/32" or more likely 1/4" to 1/8".

I don't see what tolerances have to do with it? You still have to do math if you have to site a member between two other members regardless of the tolerance. For example, to frame an 8 foot wall you have to cut your studs down to accommodate the top plate and bottom plate and the trim plate above the top plate. Similarly with windows, doors, and headers. Whether you have a 1/16 tolerance or a 1/8 tolerance it doesn't…

The idea that you have to do a full LCD or GCD to work with fractions in engineering or building is not rational.

Re: Why do we still teach people to calculate?

#75

Post by criddell »

hot_gril wrote: post #48
criddell wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got my degree in the mid 90's and let me tell you - high school guidance counsellors in the 1980's had no clue at all what computer science was. I arrived at university expecting to be writing a lot of programs and was soon struggling with a heavy load of mathematics and proofs. Our introduction to computer programming professor made it clear that that class was the only one where we would be taught to program. Com…

The problem with actually learning to code in school is that you'd spend a lot of time learning specifics that become outdated, which you could've self-studied anyway. Idk what it was like in the 1980s, but in 2015 our CS practice problems and tests were mostly pencil+paper, with actual code only used as a teaching tool in projects and some homework (more in lower divs).

That’s why I think the old SICP-based curricula are so great. Learning Scheme isn’t really the point. It’s all about fundamentals of computation.

Re: Why do we still teach people to calculate?

#76

Post by hot_gril »

criddell wrote: post #75
hot_gril wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with actually learning to code in school is that you'd spend a lot of time learning specifics that become outdated, which you could've self-studied anyway. Idk what it was like in the 1980s, but in 2015 our CS practice problems and tests were mostly pencil+paper, with actual code only used as a teaching tool in projects and some homework (more in lower divs).

That’s why I think the old SICP-based curricula are so great. Learning Scheme isn’t really the point. It’s all about fundamentals of computation.

We used Scheme too, it was a good way of teaching general computation.

Re: Why do we still teach people to calculate?

#77

Post by PhasmaFelis »

klyrs wrote: post #24
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mathematicians are very much in davis/hersh "what is mathematics anyway" This reminds me of getting my CS degree in the early 2000s, then slowly realizing that my comp-sci program had taught me lots of interesting things about how computers and programs work, and essentially nothing about how to write code for a living. Also reminds me of playing Dominion (the card game) with another student, me saying "Okay, I've…

> Dude was a math grad student. I narrowly restrained myself from saying ... Do not show restraint, and neither will I. For I am a mathematician, not a fucking calculator. But once, early in undergrad, I was capable of multiplying 4-digit numbers rather quickly. But tallying never seemed useful except while grading exams -- during which my brain populates a lookup table over the course of an hour, and then I can tall…

> Do not show restraint, and neither will I. For I am a mathematician, not a fucking calculator.

I don't expect mathematicians to be lightning calculators, but expressing awe at grade-school arithmetic is a bit much.

Re: Why do we still teach people to calculate?

#78

Post by nerdponx »

pklausler wrote: post #22

Because being able to do basic order-of-magnitude arithmetic in one's head is a critical thinking tool essential to detecting nonsense claims in real time.

It's also just useful. If I and my coworkers had to constantly stop to pull out a calculator (or an equivalent app) to compute anything, we'd never get anything done.

Re: Why do we still teach people to calculate?

#79

Post by nerdponx »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #35
bayindirh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you run every basic calculation through a calculator, you'll make every task take 3x time it requires today, in best case. I have seen people eyeball measurements and taking notes, and bringing in perfectly manufactured goods (blinds, cupboards, etc.) in return. Esp, in construction, nothing is precise, so being able to eyeball correctly after a quick measurement with a tape and doing some basic math on the number…

I just left a comment on a different thread about detached from reality a lot of tech workers are, and then here I find a guy being like "but rugged calculators are a thing, why do you need to do math in your head?" Tell me you have never built a thing[1] in your entire life that was more complex than an IKEA bookshelf without telling me that challenge: I do hobby projects all the time and I couldn't even tell you ho…

Hell even installing shelves in my closet had me doing trigonometry on a scrap of printer paper to figure out how close I could space together the shelves and still be able to get the boards through the door frame.

Calculation is one of the core skills of human cognition and is correspondingly foundational for just about all of human enterprise. Not doing it means limiting your ability to participate in said enterprise.

Re: Why do we still teach people to calculate?

#80

Post by nerdponx »

ssl-3 wrote: post #64
ein0p wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customary units are given in fractions of an inch. Eg half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth etc. So you’re dealing with simple fractions. That is why I buy tape measures that also have metric scale - to sidestep all that bullshit entirely when adding, multiplying, dividing or subtracting, yet be able to measure distances in inches too

I keep a fractional-inch tape measure in the toolbox in my work truck because that's what everyone else (in the US) has, and I need to be able to work with others. I also have to carry around two sets of wrenches, two sets of sockets, two sets of Allen keys, and it's all quite frankly absolute bullshit. But that's the world I get to participate in. At home in my own geeky little workshop, where I don't need to satisf…

> screws

Torx?

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