[racket-dev] New error messages for *SL

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 7:11 PM, Carl Eastlund <cce at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
> A click away can be one too many.  Students have enough difficulty
> finding documentation as it is.

Yes...


On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 5:51 PM, Jay McCarthy <jay.mccarthy at gmail.com> wrote:
> But, if you read the documentation as a reference
> when you have a problem it is frustrating to chase through a few links
> to get the "real" documentation.

...and yes. That's the idea.


> If it is a click away and if the idea is that students got to B because they went thru A?

This change is targeted at people who use the language tower as
intended (in order, from BSL to ISL).

By the time students get to BSL+abbr, they are still very shaky on
BSL. You can't say "these forms are just like BSL" and expect them to
be able to recall the details of BSL. They will have to click through
the link, but most likely they won't click, and they will remain
confused. It is better to have all the information right there in the
first place.


> How about we have a
> note saying that ISL cond is the same as ASL cond, then write it all
> out anyway.

Right now all the forms that are borrowed from the previous level are
gathered together under the "Common Syntax" subsection header. But it
looks like people find this too subtle, so I'll add something more
visible.


> And presumably we don't need to do it by duplicating
> code, we can define it one place in Scribble and just use that text
> twice.

That's how it's coded at the moment. Though because of the how the
layout engine interacts with the macros I'm using to avoid the
dictation, I'm getting all these extra new lines, but hopefully we fix
that before the release.