Why are we still teaching algebra?

[Brett Luna]

Beautiful formatting Brett! Hand-coded HTML or WYSIWYG editor?

Your example reminded me of software I wrote long ago to pack a number of arbitrary shapes into other arbitrary shapes, e.g. for wood interest consider inputting a cut list and fitting it efficiently into either sheets goods or arbitrary sized boards, maintaining a specified grain orientation, working around defects, and maintaining kerf widths and allowing for surfacing waste. It's been a long time so I forget the details but you can bet your bippy I used a bit o' algebra. Good clean fun!

For those unfamiliar, when developing software the use of constants for anything is rare. The math (simple algebra, matrix algebra, calculus, etc.) is the easy part, normally done on paper first - the computer does nothing but dumb arithmetic. The logic and "bookkeeping" usually need far more thought than the math.

JKJ

Thanks, John but it's simple stuff, really. Done with a combination of WYSIWYG and manual* BB Code entry, using the [FONT], [SIZE], [SUB], and a few other formatting tags. If only the board had a LaTeX plugin, we could have some real fun. I need to install a TeX extension for Chrome one of these days.

*because WYSIWYG's code result is often...um...inelegant.