path: root/2024/captions/emacsconf-2024-maxima--emacs-eev-and-maxima-now--eduardo-ochs--main.vtt

WEBVTT captioned by edrx
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Language: en-GB

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Hi! My name is Eduardo Ochs. I'm the author of

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an obscure package called eev and I

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think that it's better to start this

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presentation by the middle of the story -

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by this word here: Maxima.

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Maxima is a computer algebra system

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that has several interfaces. One

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of them is WxMaxima, that looks very

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modern and is very pretty, and it

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looks like this...

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it's a cell based interface. We can type

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an expression here and execute it...

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here's the result.

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But I don't like that interface

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because my memory is very bad, and I type

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very slowly and with lots of mistakes...

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so for me this ugly interface that

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I'm going to show now is much better -

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and here I'm going to show how I am teaching

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that ugly interface to beginners.

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If I type f8 on these three lines here

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it creates a Maxima running inside Emacs -

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I mean, using a terminal and running inside

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a shell buffer in Emacs...

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and if I type f8 on this other the lines here

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the 'f8's send lines to Maxima, and, ta-daaa,

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this small program drew this.

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I live in Brazil and people in

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developed countries cannot imagine

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how are the beginners that we have here...

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in a sense Brazil is another planet.

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Let me explain why, and also let me

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explain why Maxima, why Emacs... because

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people always say "you should use

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programs that everyone finds intuitive,

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like VSCode"...

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well, I teach Calculus in a bad Campus

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of a good Federal University in Brazil.

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My university is called UFF, for

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Universidade Federal Fluminense.

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The main campus of UFF is in Niterói,

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that is a big city near Rio de Janeiro,

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and I work in a city called Rio das Ostras,

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that is is a small city 200 Kms away

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from Rio de Janeiro.

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I started working there in 2009.

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My campus gets very little funding -

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that's a long story that I don't have time

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to tell now - and we get the

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students that don't get enough marks in

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the admission process to go to better places.

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Also, my campus has two institutes -

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I call them The Institute of Humanities

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and The Institute of Inhumanities.

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Each of our institutes has a small building...

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the Humanities building has lots of plants and

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lots of graffittis - I call it the Good Building -

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and the Inhumanities building has lots

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of rules and prohibitions, and I call it the

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Evil Building.

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I heard that the Inhumanities building

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has a laboratory with computers, and that

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it doesn't have any machine that runs Linux...

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but the Inhumanities building is

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shrouded in mystery, and basically

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humans avoid it - only inhumans go there.

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I only discovered how much "another planet"

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Brazil is a few months ago. In May and June

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of this year the federal universities in Brazil

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paralyzed their activities in a nationwide

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strike for two months, and during the strike

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the humanity students occupied the

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Humanities Building and organized lots

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of activities there.

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They asked me if I could give some workshops

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and I offered two hands-on workshops

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on Free Software for beginners -

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basically on Emacs and eev, with

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tutorials with lots of "try this"s...

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and, as usual, the students of

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Computer Science and Engineering ignored

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the workshop completely, and didn't come...

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but some students of psychology and of

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Producão Cultural, which is basically

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techniques for producing cultural

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activities, came to workshop... and they LOVED

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the workshop - they found it FUN.

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And after the workshop I told the

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students that there are lots of things

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that, uh, "everyone knows and I don't",

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and I would like to learn them,

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but I find them too hard to learn by myself

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because I'm a dinosaur - I'm only used to

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interfaces that are very old,

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and that are not graphical... and one

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of the examples of the things that I

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would like to learn was Canva.

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And then the student of Produção Cultural

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taught me Canva in 10 minutes,

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AND THAT CHANGED MY LIFE.

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Anyway, again, I'm working in that place,

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Rio das Ostras, since 2009,

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and the Computer Science students

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here know lots of programs and languages

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that I would like to learn, but in all

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these 15 years the Computer Science

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students only helped me twice.

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It turns out that our Inhumanities

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students don't have a culture of sharing

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and helping - but our Humanities students do.

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Another detail about how much Brazil

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is another planet...

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well, I only discovered this very

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recently, too... my research is in Logic,

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I sometimes go to conferences, usually in

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Brazil, very rarely outside, and people

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here don't bring their laptops to the

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conferences - we don't have a culture

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of sitting together with friends

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or colleagues to learn with them how to

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use the programs that they use...

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for example, many of my friends

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are logicians, so they have to draw

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lots of diagrams, and I don't know how

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they use their programs to draw diagrams...

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I don't know how things are in

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universities with good computer labs but,

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anyway, consider these sentences

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sentences that sort of everybody says...

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"Everyone knows VSCode",

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"Everyone knows Jupiter Notebooks",

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"Everyone draws diagrams with Quiver"...

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Here these things are not true -

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and they are not relevant -

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here knowledge about programs does not

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propagate... and

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one of my goals in life is

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to become friends with some people who

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know how to use for example, code blocks

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in Org, and JavaScript, and learn some of

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their workflows... or, rather one of my

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goals is to become someone who deserves

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help.

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More on Maxima for students...

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remember: our inhumanities students

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don't have a culture of sharing and helping

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but our humanity students do...

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I've been telling my students - I teach

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Calculus 2 and 3 here -that they will learn

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much faster if they learn Maxima,

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and that people who learn Maxima can take

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an optional test and earn extra marks

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in the course, but if they behave

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as typical inhumanities students -

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I mean, not asking questions and

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not helping their colleagues -

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then I won't help help...

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Actually it's even worse. I've

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told my students that my documentation

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is not good enough yet and every

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question helps me a lot, so PLEASE ask

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questions, and I've bagged on my knees...

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and now I can treat students

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who don't ask questions as people who

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won't help someone that they know

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who is begging on his knees!

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Now let me explain another word of

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the title of this presentation.

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The title of this presentation is

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"Emacs, eev, and Maxima - Now!"

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The "Now!" in the title means:

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in less than one hour and even for people

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who have never seen a terminal in their lives.

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Well, my title is a slight exaggeration...

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it only took less than one hour

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for one person, who is a school kid

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from a small City in the North of Brazil,

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who didn't know anything about programming,

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but who was competing in the local

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Math Olympiads, so not a typical person...

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Now let me tell a story based on

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real events and based on a real student.

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The student said: "I have Linux on my

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laptop, can you help me to do blah1?"

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I answered: "Sure, do blah2 and blah3..."

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this was all by chat, I don't remember if

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by WhatsApp or by Telegram...

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then one week passes, and the student

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talks to me again, and the student says:

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"It doesn't work!", and I answer:

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"What happens when you do blah4 and blah5?"

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another week passes, then the student reappears,

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and he says: "It doesn't work!"

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and I answer: "Type blah6 and blah7 in

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the terminal, press ENTER, take a

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photo of your screen... remember, not a

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screenshot, it's a photo of your screen...

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and send it to me." Then the student

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disappears again, another week passes and

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the student reappears and says:

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"How do I open a terminal?"

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Well, then...

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PLONK.

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According to the Jargon file "plonk" is

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the sound of that a newbie makes as he

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falls to the bottom of a kill file.

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I prefer this simpler definition here...

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for me "plonk" is the sound

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that a person makes when he, or she, or they

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hits the bottom of my list of priorities.

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I've been using this slogan with my

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students - it sounds much better in

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Portuguese, sorry... "I am not a telepath,

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and for me it is 100 times harder to

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discover the doubts of people who don't

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talk to me than to discover the doubts of

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people who do talk to me.

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There's an interesting thing here in

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this presentation by Abelson and Sussman.

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Let me explain now this word of

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my title, "Emacs"...

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and the idea is that learning Emacs can

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mean many things, learning Lisp can mean

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many things, and in this presentation...

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oh no, one second...

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sorry, back.

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In this presentation they say...

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"anyone can learn Lisp in one day,

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except that if they already know Fortran,

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then it will take three days".

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And I would add: and if the person

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is starting with Doom Emacs then it would

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take take five years.

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Why? Because the person is using

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a different notion of Emacs,

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and a different notion of Lisp.

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The person is starting by spending five

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years learning how to configure Emacs, and

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the person is using Lisp as a very weird

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configuration language.

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Usually the people who start by Doom Emacs

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they start by configuring Emacs,

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and only then they learn things like

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defun, etc...

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and another slogan that I use a lot

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with my students is that there are

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many cases in which learning just the

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thing B takes 200 hours but learning

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A and then B takes just 20 hours.

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Here are some kinds of beginners

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that I do not want to help.

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First example: a person who says "I can't

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read that page - it has too many links".

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Second example: a person who says

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"I don't want to read anything and

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I don't want to learn anything,

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I want something that just works".

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And third example: "I don't want to

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look at examples, you need to summarize

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everything to me in one paragraph".

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There are more explanations on

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these kinds of beginners at my page

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about this presentation - here.

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And here is one kind of beginner

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that I really want to help.

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Beginners that are nerdy kids

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who are used to:

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reading materials that are too advanced for them,

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understanding only a few percent of what they read,

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remembering just a tiny fraction of what they read,

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going to back to these materials later,

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and taking notes about what they read...

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and who are also always interested in

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experimenting with new ways of taking notes,

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transcribing, summarizing and saving links

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to primary sources.

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I'd like to say something about how

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I've been plonking the paragraph people...

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who are the people who say:

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"I don't want to look at examples,

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you need to summarize everything to me

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in one paragraph".

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Well, I'm a mathematician...

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I work with lots of things

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that can only be summarized in a paragraph

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if we choose the level of who

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we are talking to...

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so we have many different

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one-paragraph summaries,

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one for each level...

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and in many cases this sentence,

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"you need to summarize it

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in one paragraph", is WRONG -

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the person means I want to learn a lot

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in 10 minutes - and this needs diagrams

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animations, AND EXAMPLES.

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This is an example of something

00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:24.000
in mathematics - in category Theory -

00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:27.000
I only understood after too many time -

00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:29.000
after zillions of years...

00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:30.000
It is called The Yoneda Lemma.

00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:32.000
This is the general case -

00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:35.000
this small thing here...

00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:40.000
but I only understood it after

00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:45.000
understanding many particular cases, and

00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:49.000
then organizing them in a way in which

00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:52.000
different figures had similar shapes...

00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:56.000
and the textual explanations

00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:58.000
for the Yoneda Lemma - the one paragraph

00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:00.000
explanations, or the many paragraph

00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.000
explanations - never helped the much...

00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:07.000
they contained formulas...

00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:10.000
in mathematics, but written linearly...

00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:12.000
that had too many symbols...

00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:15.000
and my mental buffer is very small...

00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:18.000
and I had to find several tricks to reduce

00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:21.000
the cognitive overload of all these ideas.

00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:24.000
For example, I had to name the symbols

00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:29.000
consecutively, like A, B, C,

00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:31.000
so there's a kind of a temporal order

00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:34.000
in which the symbols that appear first

00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:37.000
have initial letters...

00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:40.000
I had to find a way to put

00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:42.000
an archetypal case and the general case

00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:43.000
side to side -

00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:45.000
they have the same "shape"...

00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:47.000
I had to find good conventions

00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:49.000
for fonts and types...

00:15:49.000 --> 00:15:51.000
I had to choose good meanings

00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:53.000
for what it means...

00:15:53.000 --> 00:15:57.000
sorry, for what are vertical arrows,

00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:01.000
what are horizontal arrows, and so on...

00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:06.000
and what is "above without an arrow"...

00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:09.000
So, how much detail should we include

00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:12.000
in our technical explanations?

00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:14.000
Well there are many measures

00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:17.000
for cognitive (over)load...

00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:20.000
For example, I asked many technical questions

00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:21.000
on the Maxima mailing list

00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:24.000
that got answers that included

00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:27.000
snippets and names of of Lisp functions...

00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.000
in Common Lisp, because Maxima is written

00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:32.000
in Common Lisp... and I liked that...

00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:35.000
and I asked some some technical questions

00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:35.000
on the Org mailing list

00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:37.000
and on the Hyperbole mailing list,

00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:40.000
and usually I got answers

00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:43.000
that avoided the technical details...

00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:45.000
note that I chose the term "avoided"

00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:47.000
to denote frustration...

00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:50.000
by the way, if one of my students panics

00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:54.000
on this part here...

00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:56.000
"After setting the user and password

00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:57.000
you will get a Unix prompt"...

00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:01.000
if the student panics on this

00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:05.000
and does not know what to ask

00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:07.000
and just gives up, then...

00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:09.000
plonk.

00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:13.000
So... I was talking a lot about

00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:15.000
plonking people...

00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:16.000
What's left after plonking many people?

00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:19.000
Well, several kinds of beginners

00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:21.000
that I want to interact with...

00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:26.000
note that "kinds" is plural...

00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:30.000
Also, I get a definition for the term

00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:32.000
"beginners"... think on books...

00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:37.000
technical books, that start with

00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:38.000
"This book is written for the persons

00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:40.000
of the types such and such"...

00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:43.000
Maybe several definitions

00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:47.000
for the term "beginners"...

00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:49.000
also, a metric that lets me choose between

00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:52.000
options A, B and C when I'm trying to

00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:55.000
write material for my beginners...

00:17:55.000 --> 00:18:00.000
for example, here, again...

00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:04.000
should I explain what is a Unix prompt?

00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:07.000
No!!!

00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:09.000
Why "no"?

00:18:09.000 --> 00:18:11.000
Well, let me use another example.

00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:16.000
This one I took from a discussion on IRC...

00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:18.000
we were helping a certain beginner

00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:20.000
that was there...

00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:24.000
and one person suggested to the beginner

00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:27.000
to do this: type M-:, and then this

00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:29.000
thing here, and then ENTER.

00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:33.000
And I suggested this instead.

00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:35.000
Copy this expression to your notes,

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:38.000
and then type C-e C-x C-e...

00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:42.000
and the mnemonic for C-e C-x C-e is

00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.000
C-exe, for "execute".

00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:47.000
And then... for me the option 1,

00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:50.000
this option here, is very costly,

00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:53.000
because the person has to type a lot

00:18:53.000 --> 00:18:55.000
without errors,

00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.000
and then after running that

00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:03.000
and reading this page here...

00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:06.000
the way of going back to that page is gone.

00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:08.000
So the person has to commit lots

00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:10.000
of information to memory -

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:13.000
either the person learns from this page

00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:16.000
everything that she needs or the person

00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:20.000
memorizes how to go there the next time....

00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.000
and for me the option 2 - this one:

00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:27.000
put this in your notes and then

00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:29.000
execute it with C-exe -

00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:32.000
is much better, because the person

00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:34.000
commits information to notes,

00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:36.000
and the person learns a way to return

00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:40.000
to this node of the manual later...

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:45.000
and with this the person learns

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:47.000
another way to use her notes.

00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:50.000
I have a lot of material about that...

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:52.000
see for example this page here -

00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:54.000
there's a link to it

00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:56.000
in my page for this talk...

00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:58.000
also, I live in a place in which

00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:00.000
the people who find my instructions

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.000
too complex or too boring

00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:06.000
disappear - either for months or forever...

00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:08.000
So if I give an instruction

00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:10.000
that the person cannot understand

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:13.000
and the person gives up

00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:15.000
I lose the person...

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:18.000
Now let me do some things in a weird order.

00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:20.000
In a normal presentation this would be

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:22.000
the conclusion, and it would be presented

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:24.000
at the end...

00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:26.000
but I will present it now,

00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:28.000
before the technical details.

00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:31.000
So, I was teaching Emacs, eev and Maxima

00:20:31.000 --> 00:20:34.000
for students... did it work well?

00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:36.000
Well... sort of, but in a weird way.

00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:39.000
Many students decided to take my test

00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:42.000
on Emacs, eev, and Maxima...

00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:45.000
let me consider only the 35 students

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:48.000
in the two last semesters that were able

00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:51.000
to do what I asked, that was to use a link

00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:56.000
like this one to go to my notes...

00:20:56.000 --> 00:20:59.000
they had to go to a specific small program

00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:02.000
in Maxima, copy that program to their notes,

00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:04.000
modify it a bit to make it solve

00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:06.000
a slightly different problem,

00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:08.000
and then save the new program.

00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:11.000
So it was mostly a test on the interface,

00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:14.000
and to test if they knew some

00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:16.000
very basic things on Maxima...

00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:19.000
but of these 35 students only 10 students

00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:21.000
asked questions on the Telegram group...

00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:24.000
Mostly they discussed

00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:27.000
with other students...

00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:30.000
sometimes live - they would bring

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.000
their laptops to the university to discuss...

00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:37.000
they only do that very rarely,

00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:40.000
but they brought it...

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:42.000
other times they would discuss

00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:44.000
with their colleagues on Discord...

00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:47.000
but I got very little feedback

00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:50.000
for my usability test.

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:52.000
So my experiment failed - in the sense

00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:55.000
that I didn't get the feedback

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:57.000
that I expected - I only got a fraction

00:21:57.000 --> 00:21:59.000
of the feedback that I expected...

00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:03.000
...but I learned lots of things.

00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:06.000
Well, I got very angry, very frustrated,

00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:08.000
but I saw that I can't invest a lot of energy

00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:11.000
on students who... how do I say?

00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:13.000
who "won't talk to me".

00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:16.000
then I decided to make contact

00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:19.000
with some schools - secondary schools -

00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:21.000
and to make a long story short...

00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:25.000
in one of the schools I was

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:27.000
very well received...

00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:29.000
the students asked lots of questions,

00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:31.000
and in the middle of the discussion

00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:35.000
we were discussing this little program here,

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:37.000
that splits the the frame in two windows

00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:38.000
and displays the file ~/HELP

00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:41.000
in the window at the right...

00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:46.000
and I showed them Elisp tutorial,

00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:50.000
that starts... here...

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:55.000
and right in its third section

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:57.000
it explains 'quote'.

00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:00.000
So, I had to explain to them

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:03.000
how we can use quote to pass...

00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:07.000
to avoid evaluating a program...

00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:09.000
we can use quote to pass unevaluated

00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:11.000
programs as arguments...

00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:13.000
and quote blew their minds,

00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:16.000
and I was amazed by their questions,

00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:18.000
and I saw more clearly that the campus

00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:20.000
in which I work is a hole,

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:22.000
and that I need to do more things outside.

00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:25.000
Now let's see some technical details.

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:28.000
What exactly am I teaching to

00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:20.000
these students?

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:32.000
Basically, my old tutorial for eev

00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:36.000
was this one... it started with a

00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:39.000
section on installing eev, and then it

00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:42.000
explained Lisp, and how to use

00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:44.000
elisp hyperlinks...

00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:46.000
and then lots of other things...

00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:49.000
but I'm using this new tutorial here,

00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:51.000
that I am not announcing in many places

00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:54.000
because I wanted to test it a lot

00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:59.000
before making it very public...

00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:04.000
and it starts with other installation

00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:06.000
instructions, that start with

00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:11.000
instructions for installing WSL

00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:13.000
on a machine with Windows,

00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:16.000
and then installing Debian there

00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:19.000
and then after that people have to install

00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:26.000
Emacs, and then they have to install eev...

00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:30.000
And I'm also using this map here,

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:32.000
that I'm reorganizing,

00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:34.000
so it's going to change a lot

00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:36.000
in the next days...

00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:40.000
it has a 2-dimensional map here,

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.000
and it has lots of things that I'm putting

00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:46.000
in a single place to make it easier

00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:49.000
to answer questions, and to show

00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:51.000
to the students that I have answers

00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:56.000
for the most common questions...

00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:59.000
Remember, my target audience

00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:02.000
is mostly composed of beginners who have

00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:04.000
never seen a terminal in their lives,

00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:06.000
and that get bored very quickly...

00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:10.000
and when they get bored they disappear.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:15.000
What are my main goals for the first day?

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.000
I want them to "install everything",

00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:22.000
where "everything" means WSL on their

00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:27.000
Windows machines, then Debian, Emacs, eev,

00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:32.000
lots of Debian packages that they install

00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:44.000
with this block here...

00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:47.000
After that they need to run

00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:51.000
some Maxima programs, and some test blocks...

00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:53.000
and configure Emacs, and create a first set

00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:57.000
of executable notes, and I consider

00:25:57.000 --> 00:25:59.000
that after that the person is

00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:01.000
autonomous.

00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:04.000
I said that the students

00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:05.000
learn how to "Run some Maxima programs".

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:07.000
Let me be more precise about that.

00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:09.000
The first step is something

00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:14.000
that I call "The 5-minute workshop"...

00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:17.000
it happens in the classroom,

00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:20.000
on my laptop, and I make the students

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:20.000
run this.

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.000
Actually in a first moment I run

00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:27.000
this thing here, and then I ask them

00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:30.000
to run it themselves.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:35.000
So: I type f8 on these three things here,

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:37.000
we get a target buffer running Maxima,

00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:40.000
then I type f8 several other times here...

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:42.000
when I type f8 here it opens a GNUPlot

00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:46.000
window, that I have to close

00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:49.000
by typing 'q' here...

00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:51.000
and that's it. And then I say:

00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:53.000
now it's your turn. And the students go there,

00:26:53.000 --> 00:26:56.000
they type f8 three times, and then they

00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:03.000
type f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 f8 q f8 q...

00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:07.000
The second step is similar -

00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:09.000
is another individual workshop,

00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:01.000
also just a few minutes long,

00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:15.000
in which they learn how to access my notes.

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:17.000
My notes on Maxima are here -

00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:21.000
I mean, this is the HTMLized version...

00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:26.000
it starts with a header, then a huge index,

00:27:26.000 --> 00:27:29.000
then many blocks like this...

00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:31.000
and this is a specific block that corresponds

00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:33.000
to the thing that we we ran

00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:37.000
in the first 5-minute workshop.

00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:40.000
And in this second 5-minute workshop

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:43.000
they run the instructions in this section...

00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:46.000
usually I skip this thing in the first moment,

00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:52.000
then I explain it to them...

00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:56.000
and they run something like this,

00:27:56.000 --> 00:27:58.000
that downloads a copy

00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:02.000
of my notes on Maxima,

00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:04.000
puts that copy in a temporary buffer...

00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:06.000
and they can run the thing here

00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:18.000
exactly in the same way as before...

00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:22.000
And I also ask them to run the small

00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:25.000
Maxim programs in other blocks,

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:27.000
like this one, for example...

00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:29.000
if we run this it calculates the solution

00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:31.000
of a question that I put in a test

00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:34.000
one or two semesters ago...

00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:38.000
it starts by calculating several integrals

00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:41.000
and then it organizes all the solutions

00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:49.000
in a big Matrix like this...

00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:52.000
I said that at one point the students

00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:55.000
have to install lots of Debian packages.

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.000
This happens after they have installed

00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:05.000
Debian, then Emacs, and eev...

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.000
and they already know a bit about eepitch,

00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:12.000
so they are in this section of the

00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:14.000
instructions, and they just have to type

00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:20.000
f8 here several times and watch what

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:22.000
happens...

00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:24.000
after that we have many options,

00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:26.000
and I have this map here and I usually

00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:29.000
choose a path according to the interests

00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:32.000
and the questions of the students...

00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:34.000
and there are many things that can go wrong,

00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:37.000
so this page also works as as a place

00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:41.000
in which I put all my troubleshooting

00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:43.000
instructions...

00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:43.000
and if a student has a question...

00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:47.000
I mean, suppose that the student is

00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:50.000
talking to me by WhatsApp or Telegram,

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:52.000
and the student is saying:

00:29:52.000 --> 00:29:54.000
okay I installed the things such and such,

00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:56.000
and I tried the thing blahblah, and

00:29:56.000 --> 00:29:58.000
something went wrong...

00:29:58.000 --> 00:29:59.000
and I say: ok, can you send me a screenshot

00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:02.000
or a photo of your screen?

00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:04.000
And then we can troubleshoot that

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:10.000
by using a section of this page here.

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:11.000
This is a work in progress,

00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:14.000
I'm reorganizing this thing for

00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:15.000
the 10th time...

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.000
and the rest of what can happen

00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:21.000
with these students can't be explained

00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:23.000
clearly in a video... so I'm going

00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:26.000
to put the all the other stuff in the

00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:28.000
page of the video, and I'm going to stop

00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:30.000
the video here.

00:30:30.000 --> 00:07:12.000
So: thanks, and bye!