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