wiki about mathsteps HOT 25 OPEN

I have started to translate mathstep's rewrite rules into the rewrite rule language of a CAS in order to help document them. Using a more abstract language like this to show what each rewrite rule does may make it easier for potential contributers to learn the codebase.

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closing cause the wiki's pretty sweet right now - thanks @aelnaiem !

we can reopen this issue if anyone wants more stuff added

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Wiki is good but I want to ask about the API. Is it more extensible ? If so then an API section can be created.

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can you explain what you mean by "more extensible"?

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The question is that can a user be provided with more methods or functionalities to play around with the equation apart from seeing the changeTypes and Solving. So is the API extensible ? Coz I am still into the codebase and I still need some time to figure about this.

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right now all you can do with the mathsteps library is:

• solve an equation step by step
• simplify an expression step by step
• (coming soon) factor a quadratic

and the steps have changeTypes and maybe substeps (as described in the wiki section about NodeStatus)

let me know if you have any other questions :)

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All clear for now 😄

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I am interested in knowing what Socratic.org wants mathsteps to do in the future. For example, should it be able to:

• Support a single step mode so it can be used as a tutor? (In single step mode, an expression is submitted, one step is made on it, and then this step is returned).
• Run its rewrite rules in reverse so problems can be generated that require specific rules to solve. This would be useful for giving students practice using rules they are having troubles with, creating worksheets, and creating tests.
• Accept a sequence of steps that represent a student's failed attempt at a solution and then identify the step where the problem occurred?
• Display the rule that was applied at each step symbolically along with the identity each rule was obtained from?
• In each step return the location in the tree where a rule was applied so that visualization tools can graphically identify the subexpression the rule was applied to?
• Work with unflattened expressions? This is useful for explaining the details of how mathematics works. I think there is a great opportunity for teaching programmers who are weak in math fundamental mathematics. For this use, unflattened trees are better than flattened ones.

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Support a single step mode so it can be used as a tutor? (In single step mode, an expression is submitted, one step is made on it, and then this step is returned).

This function already exists! But it's not exposed. We could maybe expose it, but you could also get the step by step solution and just use the first step

Run its rewrite rules in reverse so problems can be generated that require specific rules to solve. This would be useful for giving students practice using rules they are having troubles with, creating worksheets, and creating tests.

I think this is out of scope for mathsteps right now, but if someone else wanted to work on this that'd be very exciting!

Accept a sequence of steps that represent a student's failed attempt at a solution and then identify the step where the problem occurred?

This would be a great extension to mathsteps - I think it would be a separate project that uses mathsteps, but this is also something I'm really excited about and hope someone builds it. Someone's been emailing us who's been fiddling around with trying this :)

Display the rule that was applied at each step symbolically along with the identity each rule was obtained from?

I'm not totally sure what you mean, but changeTypes might already accomplish this!

In each step return the location in the tree where a rule was applied so that visualization tools can graphically identify the subexpression the rule was applied to?

This is already (somewhat buggily) implemented with changeGroups

Work with unflattened expressions? This is useful for explaining the details of how mathematics works. I think there is a great opportunity for teaching programmers who are weak in math fundamental mathematics. For this use, unflattened trees are better than flattened ones.

This seems outside the scope of what we're working on right now.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any followup questions :)

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what sort of stuff would you like to add to the wiki @nitin42 ?

let's make a list of stuff to talk about, and then we can figure out where it'll go and how we organize it :)

from mathsteps.

• Introduction to the mathsteps (with examples)
• How to use
• Working
• FAQ
• Glossary
• API reference
• Change logs
• Feedback
• Troubleshooting
• Recipes (If someone wants to integrate this into their own project )

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I am done with my list ! 😎 and I know its overwhelming !

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sounds awesome!!! if we make a gitbook, can anyone submit a request to change it? how does that work?

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from mathsteps.

this will do?

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hmm so I guess we need to make a repository for the gitbook so people can make PRs?

I don't want to give everyone edit access, I'd rather make sure a mathsteps maintainer has read something over first.

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And other options is GitHub Page

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@shirleymiao is already planning to work on #124

we could make that on github pages and add a wiki? or should we make a separate repo for the wiki..?

alternatively you could just write up a gist on github with what you'd like to go on the wiki and once I approve it I can copy paste it into our wiki on GitHub (kinda ugly but might work)

or something like this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10642928/how-to-pull-request-a-wiki-page-on-github

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Last one seems fine !

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https://gist.github.com/nitin42/4d48b94d682a124e2ea73a77aac73828

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Here is the gist !

from mathsteps.

cool :)

I think we can use tags and releases instead of Change logs

the rest looks good so far - are you going to fill in the missing pieces? I can help with anything you don't know about

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Example?

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example of what?

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ehn.. Nothing! I'll let you know ..

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