I would like to be able to show an equation in letter form, then populate the letters with the actual numbers, then get the result.
Like this:
D=50 psf
L=80 psf
w=1.2D+1.6L
w=1.2(50)+1.6(80)>>>>>>> I like the students to be able to see exactly where the numbers go.
w=188
Perhaps it would be a good idea to generally put non-optimized substitutions within added parentheses as default SMath behaviour. Then the spurious parens could be removed.
There could be another equal sign to allow replication of the equation in the same way as the user entered the terms(same order) followed by the same expression replacing variables with their values. Taking the example below, imagine that you have A and X assignments and the equation definition scattered around your sheet, then you might want to recall the function definition followed by its particular expansion and finally the result of the calculation, something like this :
A:=5
x:=3
y:=A*x
Further on to both explain and present results, we could use the ≡ operator to tell smath to display the exact sequence of terms in the same order as the user entered an expresion, this way following the example :
y≡A*x=5*3=15
I was thinking of a feature more for documentation and checking errors than for examining complete dependencies, for example:
- when a teacher writes a resolved problem, this would be useful to avoid writing expansions by hand.
- when checking errors on specific expressions, this way one could set up the exact sequence of terms in the same order as the user entered an expresion, i.e. there wouldn't be symbolic simplifications made by smath.