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> allowing you to have a conversation with the characters and follow along with their thought process. Which were muddled, confused, and, pretty much by defini
by derleth 14y ago
> allowing you to have a conversation with the characters and follow along with their thought process.
Which were muddled, confused, and, pretty much by definition, partially incorrect.
Historical development necessarily involves recapitulating the confusions of the people who finally got confused enough to throw over their original ideas.
Even if you trim the history down to only the path that actually lead to modern theory, you still have a lot of confusion to get through before you can actually introduce the main idea of the topic in all its glory. And that's in addition to the confusion students have naturally.
- pirateking 14y agoVery true. Though there is still some value in the journey through history, aside from learning the main idea. It can serve as inspiration for your own quest, and also challenge you to question modern theory as those who came before did. Being equipped with some fundamentals first, makes exploring the history less confusing. I think Charles Petzold's book "Code", is a great example of blending historical narrative with core concepts - I highly recommend it.