Re: Compatibility woes
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg76644] Re: Compatibility woes
- From: Helen Read <read at math.uvm.edu>
- Date: Fri, 25 May 2007 06:30:57 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <f2btsp$iha$1@smc.vnet.net> <f2haq0$1o5$1@smc.vnet.net> <371807.1179934865197.JavaMail.root@m35> <f33o8i$ksg$1@smc.vnet.net>
DrMajorBob wrote: > Like you, I can find no way to set or change this option. > > UNLIKE you, all my new notebooks start out with In & Out hidden. (GOOD!) > > Why anyone would want to see that, I've never understood. Seeing the In[] and Out[] labels is extremely helpful in a teaching environment. I can often figure out what is wrong in a student's notebook from the In/Out labels or lack thereof. For example, the student opened up an existing notebook (which they saved with the output still in it) and forgot to re-execute a function definition when they came back and reopened the notebook. I can easily pick out the function(s) that they didn't re-execute, and *show them* "There is no In/Out here. You didn't execute this when you came back." Similarly, sometimes the students will execute something, go back and change it, but fail to re-execute, which is easily detectable by the missing In[] tag. Or they jump all over their notebook, doing things wildly out of order (using the same names everywhere and forgetting to clear/re-execute), which you can track down (and show them) by following the In/Out numbers. Or they edit an input repeatedly, each time overwriting what they had before -- something they will often deny, BTW -- and you see a huge gap in the In/Out numbers, so you know something hinky happened at that point in their notebook and have an idea of what they need to Clear. -- Helen Read University of Vermont