Re: [Visualpython-users] Future = (Vpython + Glowscript) | Glowscript | ???

[Bruce S. <Bru...@nc...>]

Actually, in my experience with students using VPython in intro
physics, rate statements usually are necessary even for new
programmers, because VPython is so fast that simple animations
typically run too fast to be seen.

At least in intro physics, it's pretty common for physicists to
emphasize that all analyses should be done algebraically, with numbers
put in only at the end, and units are not involved in most of the
analysis. Typically it is only the final result for which the
physicist cares that correct units be given.

Bruce Sherwood

On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 9:37 AM, Kevin Karplus <ka...@so...> wrote:
>
> I'm glad to see that Vpython has a future, and that you do have plans
> to make it work on 64-bit Macs.
>
> I would find requiring "rate" statements a bit annoying, but
> tolerable.  I wonder whether it would become a major problem for new
> programmers, though, as its necessity is not obvious.
>
> One thing I would like to see is a good integration of units into the
> computation.  I tell my students to keep units with their intermediate
> results, and I suspect that most real physics teachers do also, so it
> is a bit annoying that Vpython encourages (sometimes even requires)
> unitless numbers.  I've been using the Unum package, which works
> fairly well but is rather slow (I also had to add a sqrt function for
> it).
>
> See the simulation (without animation---just using visual for optional
> graphs) in
> http://gasstationwithoutpumps.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/soda-bottle-rocket-simulation-take-2
> for an example of using Unum
>
> The visual package does not play nicely with Unum, since all the
> animation and graphing has to be unitless.  I think that a little more
> care in "duck typing" could have made the routines work just fine with
> numbers that have units.
>
>
>