Re: Assumptions, the audience and arithmetic?

["John Fleming" <johnf -at- ecn -dot- ab -dot- ca>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jane Carnall" <jane -dot- carnall -at- digitalbridges -dot- com>
To: "John Fleming" <johnf -at- ecn -dot- ab -dot- ca>; "TECHWR-L"
<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: August 17, 2001 4:14 AM
Subject: RE: Assumptions, the audience and arithmetic?


> I took a degree in Computing, and most of my co-students were
planning to
> become programmers (so was I, when I started). I noted, however,
that out of
> 70-odd people, I was one of the few who could do basic arithmetical
problems
> in my head or on a scrap of paper, and didn't instinctively reach
for my
> calculator.

Boy, how the world has changed.

I can remember back in grade two, our teacher used to have a short
mental arithmetic section every afternoon.  She'd call out two
numbers, and we'd have to add them in our heads.  There was one boy,
Randy, who was really, really good at this.

>From a documentation point of view, though, a lot of procedure writing
isn't going to need to worry about how people handle arithmetic.
What's important is that they know they have to add A and B to get C.
Not how they do the addition.

> But I took the Arithmetic O-grade in 1983, the last year that the
Scottish
> Exam Board required one section of the exam to be taken without a
> calculator: all problems had to be reckoned up on paper or in your
head. (I
> passed, too. <g>) Most of the 70-odd people in my year had either
never
> taken that exam or had taken it in a later year, when the "mental
> arithmetic" section was no longer required. Anyone else remember
that Asimov
> story where arithmetics had been wholly forgotten until some genius
clerk
> rediscovered it?

I used to read a lot of Asimov, and yes, the story does vaguely ring a
bell.

> Knowing how to add a positive number to a negative number is
something like
> knowing how to spell: it doesn't come instinctively, but once you
learn it,
> you have it for life.

Sort of like riding a bicycle.

--

John Fleming
Technical Writer
Edmonton, Alberta
email:     johnf -at- ecn -dot- ab -dot- ca



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