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The mention of Maple brings back vivid memories of freshmen year of college when the math department decided to use the software as part of instruction and no o

by mleo 2y ago

The mention of Maple brings back vivid memories of freshmen year of college when the math department decided to use the software as part of instruction and no one understood how to use it. There was a near revolt by the students.

kens 2y ago
Coincidentally, I was a developer on Maple for a summer, working on definite integration and other things.
bee_rider 2y ago
And you know a week before the semester, the TA’s were given given a copy and told to figure it out.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  > were given given a copy and told to figure it out Welcome to engineering. That's what we do. It's all we do.
  - Moru 2y ago
    But you get paid to do it, teachers are expected to do this on their off time. :-) "You know so much about computers, it's easy for you to figure it out!"
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      I.e. the teachers are expected to learn the tools they want to teach the students how to use? The horror!
      - bee_rider 2y ago
        Because of the way you did your quote, we’ve switched from talking about the TA’s to the teachers themselves. This is sort of different, the teaching assistants don’t really have teaching goals and they usually aren’t part of the decision making process for picking what gets taught, at least where I’ve been. Anyway, as far as “learn the tools they want to teach the students how to use” goes, I dunno, hard to say. I wouldn’t be that surprised to hear that some department head got the wrong-headed idea that students needed to learn more practical tools and skills, shit rolled downhill, and some professor got stuck with the job. Usually professors aren’t expert tool users after all, they are there for theory stuff. Hopefully nobody is expecting to become a vscode expert by listening to some professor who uses eMacs or vim like a proper grey-beard.
        WalterBright 2y ago
        A son and his father I know, both engineers, went to an aviation meet where on display was a radial aircraft engine, with cutaways. They spent a happy hour going through every bit of it to figure out what it did and how it worked. They paid to go there. Reminds me of when I was able to climb aboard an old steam locomotive and spent a wonderful hour tracing all the pipes and tubes and controls and figuring out what they did. A good engineering college doesn't actually teach engineering. They teach how to learn engineering. Then you teach yourself.
rikthevik 2y ago
I've never used Maple for work, only for survival. We had a Calculus for Engineers textbook that was so riddled with errors I had to use a combination of the non-Engineering textbook and Maple to figure out wtf was going on. Bad textbook, bad prof, bad TAs and six other classes. What a mess. Those poor undergrads...

by mleo 2y ago

kens 2y ago

Coincidentally, I was a developer on Maple for a summer, working on definite integration and other things.

bee_rider 2y ago

And you know a week before the semester, the TA’s were given given a copy and told to figure it out.

WalterBright 2y ago
> were given given a copy and told to figure it out Welcome to engineering. That's what we do. It's all we do.
- Moru 2y ago
  But you get paid to do it, teachers are expected to do this on their off time. :-) "You know so much about computers, it's easy for you to figure it out!"
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    I.e. the teachers are expected to learn the tools they want to teach the students how to use? The horror!
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      Because of the way you did your quote, we’ve switched from talking about the TA’s to the teachers themselves. This is sort of different, the teaching assistants don’t really have teaching goals and they usually aren’t part of the decision making process for picking what gets taught, at least where I’ve been. Anyway, as far as “learn the tools they want to teach the students how to use” goes, I dunno, hard to say. I wouldn’t be that surprised to hear that some department head got the wrong-headed idea that students needed to learn more practical tools and skills, shit rolled downhill, and some professor got stuck with the job. Usually professors aren’t expert tool users after all, they are there for theory stuff. Hopefully nobody is expecting to become a vscode expert by listening to some professor who uses eMacs or vim like a proper grey-beard.
      - WalterBright 2y ago
        A son and his father I know, both engineers, went to an aviation meet where on display was a radial aircraft engine, with cutaways. They spent a happy hour going through every bit of it to figure out what it did and how it worked. They paid to go there. Reminds me of when I was able to climb aboard an old steam locomotive and spent a wonderful hour tracing all the pipes and tubes and controls and figuring out what they did. A good engineering college doesn't actually teach engineering. They teach how to learn engineering. Then you teach yourself.

rikthevik 2y ago

I've never used Maple for work, only for survival. We had a Calculus for Engineers textbook that was so riddled with errors I had to use a combination of the non-Engineering textbook and Maple to figure out wtf was going on. Bad textbook, bad prof, bad TAs and six other classes. What a mess. Those poor undergrads...