Kind of like saying that ChatGPT is people adding an AI player to the deterministic program of a chat

Except ChatGPT was written from scratch, so not at all like that

Tic-tac-toe is a classical example problem for neural networks 101, kind of a “hello world”

Doesn’t change that that isn’t how it was implemented to begin with. In your search results there are even people on Reddit asking how to add an AI player to their existing game. Seems like you gave me search results without even looking at them.

It still is

A deterministic program, yes

Plenty of examples out there

You found plenty of examples of people adding an AI player to the game. The game itself is still a deterministic program.

Wrong maths, you say?

Yes. If I want to know what 1+2 equals, and I throw a dice, there’s a chance I will get the correct answer. If I do, that doesn’t mean it knows how to do Maths. Also, notice where it said “Here’s the calculation”, it didn’t actually show you the calculation? e.g. long multiplication, or even grouping, or the way the Chinese do it. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Even if AI manages to randomly get a correct answer here and there, it still doesn’t know how to do Maths (which includes not knowing how to count to begin with)

a tic-tac-toe machine was “AI”.

No it wasn’t. It was (and is) a deterministic program. AI isn’t.

(Not so) Fun fact: I first learnt how to use Xamarin from a book he wrote. It wasn’t very good (not unlike Microsoft documentation). He started out just having everything in MainPage, then switched to having separate classes (like MVVM stuff), but didn’t point out he had made this switch! The code snippets didn’t reflect that this was actually now in a different class! Wait what?? Wait what?? Why is none of this working?! 😂 There was a later chapter about MVVM, but he had switched styles BEFORE that chapter. So when he talks about top-down and bottom-up, well, his book was an explode in the middle approach! 😂

the worst order of operations thing imo is with the denominator in division, many people say that 1/4x should be read as (1/4) * x and not 1/(4x)

Oh god yes. I have a whole thread dedicated to it with textbook screenshots, etc. at Order of operations thread index

although I think this is usually the less popular option in polls

Depends on how many adults have forgotten the rules, since that’s what the poll is really tracking. Students have no issue with getting them correct (we’re talking like 98% correct).

apparently wolfram alpha does it that way, as well as most newer graphing calculators (TI switched between the ti-82 and ti-83)

In both cases they’re disobeying The Distributive Law, and so are demonstrably wrong

Joke is democracy doesn’t always get it right

Yes, but more to the point it’s adults who’ve forgotten the rules. Students don’t have any issue with this. Exact same applies to all the order of operations memes floating around, like 6/2(1+2) - students have no trouble with it, it’s adults who’ve forgotten the rules who argue about it.

(-3)²

Well, in my defense, that’s has the uglies.

Well, the alternative is to have to write -(3)² every time to show it’s not (-3)², so pick your poison.

You do the exponent first, then multiplication.

-3² = -1 * 3²

There’s no multiplication, just subtraction (from an unwritten 0). -3² = 0-3²

there is no space to indicate the - represents a subtraction operator

Spaces don’t mean anything in Maths, and I don’t know why people keep adding them in! A minus sign is a minus sign, whether there are spaces next to it or not.

the immediate prefix - actually represents: (-1)x

No, it actually doesn’t. It represents 0-x. Every operation on the number line starts from 0.

this actually represents (-1)(x²)

No, it actually represents 0-x²

such that PEMDAS is upheld

Which what you wrote doesn’t. M refers literally to Multiplication signs. S refers literally to subtraction signs. -x² is E then S in PEMDAS.

I don’t make these rules

You did make those up actually (or you’ve repeated someone else who made them up).

but this is how it works

No it isn’t. A minus sign is the S in PEMDAS, not M.

Double check in wolfram alpha if you doubt it

Look in a Maths textbook. Wolfram is known to be wrong in several areas. University professors warn their students against using it without adding brackets everywhere.

there’s a difference between - as an infix operator (10 - 5) and - as a prefix (-3).

The only difference is whether it’s in brackets or not. To square the number -3 you need to put it in brackets, otherwise you’re only squaring 3.

x2 where x = -3, I don’t think you’d say it’s -9

That’s because anytime you substitute for a pronumeral, whatever the pronumeral represents goes in brackets. e.g. for x=3, 2x=2(3). So if x=-3, then x²=(-3)², as opposed to if x=3, we have -x²=-(3)². Whatever the pronumeral is equal to is inside brackets when you substitute.

Surely that would mean the answer’s ambiguous, no?

No. Exponents before Subtraction. Order of operations rules.

The lack of brackets means we can’t know definitively if - is included or not

The lack of brackets mean we definitively do know that it’s not included, because to be included, it would have to be in brackets.

I’d argue that -3 represents negative three, not subtract three

It’s actually 0-3. There’s an unwritten 0, just like if the first number was positive there’s an unwritten +. 9 is actually 0+9. All operations on the number line start from 0.

negative three is it’s own distinct number from positive three

“positive 3” is actually 0+3.

post containing link to recording of this talk

My high school taught Java, but I didn’t get OOP

Yes, the correct sequence of events - one thing at a time, basic programming, then OOP. :-)

Python is not that.

It’s not a lot of things, which makes it poor for a teaching language.

Lots of us

Also, who do you mean by “us”? Programmers? Not all the kids in class want to be programmers, and this isn’t a programming class - it’s Computer Science. We cover topics like hardware, the Internet, Cybersecurity, the history of computers, data analytics, etc. Not only do not all of them want to be programmers, not even all of them want to be in I.T. - they’re just, you know, interested in computers (or in some cases they’re in the course because their parents think they should be in it - I’ve had a couple of those students). We only spend 6 weeks on programming (we spend 6 weeks on each topic), or sometimes we might do it twice and spend 12 weeks on it, and that’s it for the year! You can’t teach Year 7 kids algorithms, pseudo code, basic programming concepts (variables, branches, and loops) and OOP as well in one year. Especially when not even all of them are interested in programming. It’s just one topic we cover. OOP is something that shouldn’t be covered until at least Year 8, preferably Year 9 (by which stage students have decided if they want to continue on this path or not, and the ones we still have left we start getting more hard-core… which is where the “us” I presume you’re referring to come in).

have the experience of being the kid in that situation

Which kid? The gifted one, the one who didn’t understand loops and used 20 variables for 20 iterations, the one who didn’t understand how to write pseudo code, the one who was dyslexic,…?

I learnt python in secondary school

Which Year? I didn’t say it wasn’t appropriate for high school, I said it wasn’t appropriate for Year 7 as a first programming language.

Oh, I should clarify that. Teaching Python was decided for us by admins. The course material MAY have been designed by a teacher, but then also it may have been designed for Year 9 say. It’s inappropriate to be teaching it to Year 7 as a first proper programming language, but that’s what we had to do (otherwise then we would also have to make all our own resources to do it, and don’t forget at this point that I didn’t know how to program in Python myself yet! So yes, I had to use the already made resources, which had OOP in it).

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. The decision was made for us by school admins, NOT CS teachers. That’s why it was the stupid reason I had to learn Python.

P.S.

teach them c# and I guarantee they will be making executables to cause trouble

No, you’re overestimating the students ability. I taught C# in coding club (they were mostly around Year 8), and it was a struggle just getting them to understand basic programming concepts (imagine having to explain MVVM to them - they’re not good at understanding abstraction) - they wouldn’t have had a clue how to turn it into a malicious exe.

Is the fact that C# produced executables also a problem?

Trust me, the conversation never even gets that far.

just not installing the python runtime on them

We weren’t! We were using repl.it (or something very similar). I don’t know what the story was at other schools, other than many other teachers also wanted C# but had to do Python (it was when I came across this that I finally accepted defeat in trying to get another language in instead of Python. I wanted to start with Pascal and then do C#. In the end I had to do HTML and Python. i.e. the status quo).

Generally agree with you that teachers should be able to choose at least one of the languages to teach.

We’re supposed to be able to choose both languages, but school admins are taking away one of our choices.

if it includes JavaScript?

I wouldn’t do that at the same time as HTML - maybe later, separately. As I’ve said, as teachers we only teach one concept at a time.