It’s profoundly logical in nature, resting on a well-defined set of rules and the combining of elements in carefully thought-out ways to build up more and more complex structures on the way to a finished program. Programming is an excellent vehicle for mathematical activities. Recursive Logo program and sample output (see note below) I wanted students to take pride in the logical process of doing a project, and joy in having created something new and useful and even beautiful. Creativity was a major objective when I taught AP Computer Science. Mathematics should be to them more than received wisdom it should be a creative process. Wolfram is on the right track-to deeply understand and appreciate mathematics, students should not only read mathematics, but write it as well. By composing their own stories, poems, and essays, students come to appreciate the beauty of a well-crafted sentence, the emotional impact of alliteration, the convincing nature of a closely-reasoned argument. In English class, students read books, poems, short stories, essays, and articles-but to gain a deep appreciation for literature, they must write as well. I’ve taught programming and written a lot of Sketchpad code, and I appreciate Wolfram’s analogy.

$math sketchpad$

In a recent blog post, Karen Coe referred to Conrad Wolfram’s opinion that programming is to mathematics what composition is to English.

Math sketchpad