MathGroup Archive 1997

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Mathematica questions

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg9246] Mathematica questions
  • From: Tom <toad at planet.eon.net>
  • Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 01:01:00 -0400
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Hello Mathematica users!

Thank you to all the people who responded to my question about how to
take a string and turn it into an expression that Mathematica would
evaluate.  ToExpression was just what I needed.  I continue to REALLY
appreciate the help this group has to offer.  

Some people asked why I wasn't using something like q[1], q[2] instead
of q1[], q2[], q3[].  No doubt this is a result of simply starting on
something with no idea of what or how to do things, trying to make it
work, and later realizing there is a better way.

A quick explanation of what I am working on....

I am a high school mathematics teacher and I am trying to put together a
set of question generators using Mathematica.  These generators would
be dynamic in that each time the question was called up, it would
create a new problem, create the answer, and put it nicely onto the
screen.  I hope to use this idea , where possible, to create tests and
practice problems for my students.  So something like q1[] would be a
question generator that created random problems of a certain type.  I
also wanted to be able to use "static" questions , so if q2 was another
type of question, it would pick a question from those available and
these would be called up using q2[1], q2[2], q2[3] and so on.

Not ever having done any programming in Mathematica (or much of anything
else for that matter) it is hard to know what is "standard usage".  You
really need to dig in and try to make things work, ask questions and
learn better ways as you gain more experience.

This "project" was part of a course I am taking and I have now got it
into a form that I can hand in.  As I said, I am NOT a programmer and I
am very new to Mathematica, but if anyone would be interested in
looking at what I have done, providing feedback, etc., I can send you
the notebook with my ideas.  I could send it via email   It is about 90
k, needs Mathematica 3.0

Once again, thanks for the input and the spirit of sharing.  Thanks
especially  for the patience with newbie questions which you all
contribute to this group.

Tom De Vries


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