SPSSX Discussion

option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

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Art Kendall

option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

I suggest that
(1) SPSS provide an option to have the "calculator keys" display the conventional operators, the symbolic operators, or both.
(2) SPSS provide an option to have syntax pasted from the GUI use the conventional operators.

Members of this list develop workarounds, that would work with a single menu entry such as the 'automatic indent' one. Perhaps since there are only a handful of the operators it might make a good project for someone who wants to learn creating menu items.

Those who have been on this list know that I advocate the use of the conventional operator rather than symbolic operators to enhance readability. I won't go into why I think readability is crucial.

I do not advocate the conventional operators simply because I used them first. In fact, I learned the use of many symbolic operators while my field was philosophy about 6 years before I learned FORTRAN and SPSS.

Some reasons I advocate conventional operators
-- they require less cognitive load while learning most people have learned concepts of
    -- same different while toddlers
    -- more than less than about age 3 to 6
     -- more or equal than, less or equal than about age 9 to 13
    -- most undergrad and older people have not really dealt explicitly with 'and' 'or' 'xor' etc. learning SPSS is         the first time these have been explicit rather than tacit knowledge.
-- they are more readable for most people including the analyst her/himself, peer reviewers, supervisors,                 clients, etc., people looking at the archives.
-- the assignment operator cannot be confused with logical equal operator.
-- Those of us who have used explicit logical operators for some time forget than we had to learn the implicit operators at an early age. The later we learned to make them explicit. Later still we learned to condense into the symbolic operators. It is easy for us to forget the effort it took to learn the thought habits that are automatic. (Or to say we had a severe initiation, so they should too.)
-- Many people learning SPSS at the same time have to learn to turn implicit concepts (and, or, not, no equal, etc.) into explicit concepts. The representations that are closest to the verbal concepts are easiest to learn.
Shorthand usually presumes over-learning longhand.
-- The use of the conventional operators has been one of the areas where SPSS has had an advantage over other packages/languages.
-- Increasingly users have less background in math, stat, methods, measurement etc.

The syntax below shows one workaround. It is also attached for those using Nabble.
[perhaps some list members would test it on some syntax, as I do not have many sets of syntax that do not have the conventional operators)

*Convert symbolic operators to conventional operators.*After using this use <tools> <indent syntax> <Auto indent>.* may need to correct vertical alignment.file handle SyntaxIn /NAME=   "C:\something.sps".file handle SyntaxOut /NAME=   "C:\something v2.sps".GET DATA /TYPE=TXT   /FILE= SyntaxIn   /FIXCASE=1   /ARRANGEMENT=FIXED   /FIRSTCASE=1   /IMPORTCASE=ALL   /VARIABLES=   /1 OldSyntaxLine 0-255 A256.string NewSyntaxLine #LeftSide #RightSide(a300).compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">="," ge ").compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<="," le ").compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">", " gt ").compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<", " ge ").compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~="," ne ").compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~", " not ").compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "&", " and ").compute AssignSymbol = char.index(OldSyntaxLine,"=").Compute #LeftSide    = char.substr(OldSyntaxLine,1,AssignSymbol).compute #RightSide   = substr(OldSyntaxLine,AssignSymbol+1).compute #RightSide   = replace(#RightSide, "="," eq ").compute NewSyntaxLine = concat(rtrim(#LeftSide), rtrim(#RightSide)).save outfile = SyntaxOut /keep = NewSyntaxLine.

-- 
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

Conventional Operators.sps (1K) Download Attachment

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

Bruce Weaver

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Administrator

Art, here's one more line you might want to include:

compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "|", " OR ").

Art Kendall wrote

I suggest that
(1) SPSS provide an option to have the "calculator keys" display the conventional operators, the symbolic
operators, or both.
(2) SPSS provide an option to have syntax pasted from the GUI
use the conventional operators.

Members of this list develop workarounds, that would work with a
single menu entry such as the 'automatic indent' one. Perhaps
since there are only a handful of the operators it might make a
good project for someone who wants to learn creating menu items.

Those who have been on this list know that I advocate the
use of the conventional operator rather than symbolic operators to
enhance readability. I won't go into why I think readability is
crucial.

I do not advocate the conventional operators simply because I used
them first. In fact, I learned the use of many symbolic operators
while my field was philosophy about 6 years before I learned
FORTRAN and SPSS.

Some reasons I advocate conventional operators
-- they require less cognitive load while learning most people
have learned concepts of
    -- same different while toddlers
    -- more than less than about age 3 to 6
     -- more or equal than, less or equal than about age 9 to 13
    -- most undergrad and older people have not really dealt
explicitly with 'and' 'or' 'xor' etc. learning SPSS is
the first time these have been explicit rather than tacit
knowledge.
-- they are more readable for most people including the analyst
her/himself, peer reviewers, supervisors,                 clients,
etc., people looking at the archives.
-- the assignment operator cannot be confused with logical equal
operator.
-- Those of us who have used explicit logical operators for some
time forget than we had to learn the implicit operators at an
early age. The later we learned to make them explicit. Later still
we learned to condense into the symbolic operators. It is easy
for us to forget the effort it took to learn the thought habits
that are automatic. (Or to say we had a severe initiation, so
they should too.)
-- Many people learning SPSS at the same time have to learn to
turn implicit concepts (and, or, not, no equal, etc.) into
explicit concepts. The representations that are closest to the
verbal concepts are easiest to learn.
Shorthand usually presumes over-learning longhand.
-- The use of the conventional operators has been one of the areas
where SPSS has had an advantage over other packages/languages.
-- Increasingly users have less background in math, stat, methods,
measurement etc.

The syntax below shows one workaround. It is also attached for
those using Nabble.
[perhaps some list members would test it on some syntax, as I do
not have many sets of syntax that do not have the conventional
operators)

*Convert symbolic operators to conventional
operators.
*After using this use <tools> <indent syntax>
<Auto indent>.
* may need to correct vertical alignment.
file handle SyntaxIn /NAME=
   "C:\something.sps".
file handle SyntaxOut /NAME=
   "C:\something v2.sps".
GET DATA /TYPE=TXT
   /FILE= SyntaxIn
   /FIXCASE=1
   /ARRANGEMENT=FIXED
   /FIRSTCASE=1
   /IMPORTCASE=ALL
   /VARIABLES=
   /1 OldSyntaxLine 0-255 A256.
string NewSyntaxLine #LeftSide #RightSide(a300).
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">=","
ge ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<=","
le ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">", "
gt ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<", "
ge ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~="," ne
").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~", " not
").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "&", "
and ").
compute AssignSymbol = char.index(OldSyntaxLine,"=").
Compute #LeftSide    =
char.substr(OldSyntaxLine,1,AssignSymbol).
compute #RightSide   =
substr(OldSyntaxLine,AssignSymbol+1).
compute #RightSide   = replace(#RightSide, "="," eq ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = concat(rtrim(#LeftSide),
rtrim(#RightSide)).
save outfile = SyntaxOut /keep = NewSyntaxLine.

--
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

Conventional Operators.sps (1K) <http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/attachment/5722656/0/Conventional%20Operators.sps>

--
Bruce Weaver
bweaver@lakeheadu.ca
http://sites.google.com/a/lakeheadu.ca/bweaver/

"When all else fails, RTFM."

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING:
1. My Hotmail account is not monitored regularly. To send me an e-mail, please use the address shown above.
2. The SPSSX Discussion forum on Nabble is no longer linked to the SPSSX-L listserv administered by UGA (https://listserv.uga.edu/).

Jon K Peck

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

In reply to this post by Art Kendall

My opinion is that the "symbolic" operators are actually more familiar to most people than the "conventional" operators. The former are universally used in mathematical contexts (there is variation in what is used for "not"), and most programming languages also use these. Although Statistics syntax recognizes both, I wouldn't want to perpetuate both styles, and I think it would be confusing to get different pasted results from the same dialog.

There are at least six dialogs or subdialogs that use these buttons

Just my opinion.

Jon Peck (no "h") aka Kim
Senior Software Engineer, IBM
[hidden email]
phone: 720-342-5621

From: Art Kendall <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email],
Date: 10/22/2013 07:51 AM
Subject: [SPSSX-L] option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent by: "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <[hidden email]>

I suggest that
(1) SPSS provide an option to have the "calculator keys" display the conventional operators, the symbolic operators, or both.
(2) SPSS provide an option to have syntax pasted from the GUI use the conventional operators.

Members of this list develop workarounds, that would work with a single menu entry such as the 'automatic indent' one. Perhaps since there are only a handful of the operators it might make a good project for someone who wants to learn creating menu items.

Those who have been on this list know that I advocate the use of the conventional operator rather than symbolic operators to enhance readability. I won't go into why I think readability is crucial.

I do not advocate the conventional operators simply because I used them first. In fact, I learned the use of many symbolic operators while my field was philosophy about 6 years before I learned FORTRAN and SPSS.

Some reasons I advocate conventional operators
-- they require less cognitive load while learning most people have learned concepts of
-- same different while toddlers
-- more than less than about age 3 to 6
-- more or equal than, less or equal than about age 9 to 13
-- most undergrad and older people have not really dealt explicitly with 'and' 'or' 'xor' etc. learning SPSS is the first time these have been explicit rather than tacit knowledge.
-- they are more readable for most people including the analyst her/himself, peer reviewers, supervisors, clients, etc., people looking at the archives.
-- the assignment operator cannot be confused with logical equal operator.
-- Those of us who have used explicit logical operators for some time forget than we had to learn the implicit operators at an early age. The later we learned to make them explicit. Later still we learned to condense into the symbolic operators. It is easy for us to forget the effort it took to learn the thought habits that are automatic. (Or to say we had a severe initiation, so they should too.)
-- Many people learning SPSS at the same time have to learn to turn implicit concepts (and, or, not, no equal, etc.) into explicit concepts. The representations that are closest to the verbal concepts are easiest to learn.
Shorthand usually presumes over-learning longhand.
-- The use of the conventional operators has been one of the areas where SPSS has had an advantage over other packages/languages.
-- Increasingly users have less background in math, stat, methods, measurement etc.

The syntax below shows one workaround. It is also attached for those using Nabble.
[perhaps some list members would test it on some syntax, as I do not have many sets of syntax that do not have the conventional operators)

*Convert symbolic operators to conventional operators. *After using this use <tools> <indent syntax> <Auto indent>. * may need to correct vertical alignment. file handle SyntaxIn /NAME= "C:\something.sps". file handle SyntaxOut /NAME= "C:\something v2.sps". GET DATA /TYPE=TXT /FILE= SyntaxIn /FIXCASE=1 /ARRANGEMENT=FIXED /FIRSTCASE=1 /IMPORTCASE=ALL /VARIABLES= /1 OldSyntaxLine 0-255 A256. string NewSyntaxLine #LeftSide #RightSide(a300). compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">="," ge "). compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<="," le "). compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">", " gt "). compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<", " ge "). compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~="," ne "). compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~", " not "). compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "&", " and "). compute AssignSymbol = char.index(OldSyntaxLine,"="). Compute #LeftSide = char.substr(OldSyntaxLine,1,AssignSymbol). compute #RightSide = substr(OldSyntaxLine,AssignSymbol+1). compute #RightSide = replace(#RightSide, "="," eq "). compute NewSyntaxLine = concat(rtrim(#LeftSide), rtrim(#RightSide)). save outfile = SyntaxOut /keep = NewSyntaxLine.

-- Art Kendall Social Research Consultants

Conventional Operators.sps (1K) Download Attachment

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

View this message in context: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

David Marso

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Administrator

In reply to this post by Art Kendall

Personally I never use the GUI for generating COMPUTE statements.
In fact I rarely use the GUI for anything other than generating GRAPH or CTABLES syntax.
OTOH: I have been trying to get into the habit of consistently using
EQ, GE GT, LE, LT, AND, OR, NOT rather than
=, >=, >, <=, <, &, |, ~
While we are on the subject: Actually I'm going way off topic ;-)
I also follow a convention of using all CAPS for SPSS commands, lower case for variable names, CamelCase for Macro names and Parameters
Block alignment with whatever they call column 1 indicators of DO IF.. END IF, LOOP .. END LOOP, DO REPEAT .. END REPEAT etc. I know + is NOT required in interactive mode, but I try to code for all situations.

DO IF (blah EQ blue).
+ COMPUTE mynewvar = SomeMacroFunction a b c .
ELSE IF (blah EQ green).
+ COMPUTE mynewvar =AnotherFunction d e f .
ELSE.
+ COMPUTE mynewvar= -999.
END IF.

Much more readable than.

do if (blah = blue).
compute mynewvar = somemacrofunction a b c .
else if (blah = green).
compute mynewvar =anotherfunction d e f .
else.
compute mynewvar = -999.
end if.

ESPECIALLY when code goes on ad nauseum.
Some people say ALL CAPS LOOKS LIKE SPSS IS SCREAMING AT THEM ;-)
I say it is easier for my nervous system to parse and assign meaning as the CAPS provide visual cues.
I'm not saying that's going to work for everybody, but if I receive code in the latter form it is highly likely to be edited via FIND:REPLACE when it ships back.
DMM
---

Art Kendall wrote

I suggest that
(1) SPSS provide an option to have the "calculator keys" display the conventional operators, the symbolic
operators, or both.
(2) SPSS provide an option to have syntax pasted from the GUI
use the conventional operators.

Members of this list develop workarounds, that would work with a
single menu entry such as the 'automatic indent' one. Perhaps
since there are only a handful of the operators it might make a
good project for someone who wants to learn creating menu items.

Those who have been on this list know that I advocate the
use of the conventional operator rather than symbolic operators to
enhance readability. I won't go into why I think readability is
crucial.

I do not advocate the conventional operators simply because I used
them first. In fact, I learned the use of many symbolic operators
while my field was philosophy about 6 years before I learned
FORTRAN and SPSS.

Some reasons I advocate conventional operators
-- they require less cognitive load while learning most people
have learned concepts of
    -- same different while toddlers
    -- more than less than about age 3 to 6
     -- more or equal than, less or equal than about age 9 to 13
    -- most undergrad and older people have not really dealt
explicitly with 'and' 'or' 'xor' etc. learning SPSS is
the first time these have been explicit rather than tacit
knowledge.
-- they are more readable for most people including the analyst
her/himself, peer reviewers, supervisors,                 clients,
etc., people looking at the archives.
-- the assignment operator cannot be confused with logical equal
operator.
-- Those of us who have used explicit logical operators for some
time forget than we had to learn the implicit operators at an
early age. The later we learned to make them explicit. Later still
we learned to condense into the symbolic operators. It is easy
for us to forget the effort it took to learn the thought habits
that are automatic. (Or to say we had a severe initiation, so
they should too.)
-- Many people learning SPSS at the same time have to learn to
turn implicit concepts (and, or, not, no equal, etc.) into
explicit concepts. The representations that are closest to the
verbal concepts are easiest to learn.
Shorthand usually presumes over-learning longhand.
-- The use of the conventional operators has been one of the areas
where SPSS has had an advantage over other packages/languages.
-- Increasingly users have less background in math, stat, methods,
measurement etc.

The syntax below shows one workaround. It is also attached for
those using Nabble.
[perhaps some list members would test it on some syntax, as I do
not have many sets of syntax that do not have the conventional
operators)

*Convert symbolic operators to conventional
operators.
*After using this use <tools> <indent syntax>
<Auto indent>.
* may need to correct vertical alignment.
file handle SyntaxIn /NAME=
   "C:\something.sps".
file handle SyntaxOut /NAME=
   "C:\something v2.sps".
GET DATA /TYPE=TXT
   /FILE= SyntaxIn
   /FIXCASE=1
   /ARRANGEMENT=FIXED
   /FIRSTCASE=1
   /IMPORTCASE=ALL
   /VARIABLES=
   /1 OldSyntaxLine 0-255 A256.
string NewSyntaxLine #LeftSide #RightSide(a300).
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">=","
ge ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<=","
le ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">", "
gt ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<", "
ge ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~="," ne
").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~", " not
").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "&", "
and ").
compute AssignSymbol = char.index(OldSyntaxLine,"=").
Compute #LeftSide    =
char.substr(OldSyntaxLine,1,AssignSymbol).
compute #RightSide   =
substr(OldSyntaxLine,AssignSymbol+1).
compute #RightSide   = replace(#RightSide, "="," eq ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = concat(rtrim(#LeftSide),
rtrim(#RightSide)).
save outfile = SyntaxOut /keep = NewSyntaxLine.

--
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

Conventional Operators.sps (1K) <http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/attachment/5722656/0/Conventional%20Operators.sps>

Please reply to the list and not to my personal email.
Those desiring my consulting or training services please feel free to email me.
---
"Nolite dare sanctum canibus neque mittatis margaritas vestras ante porcos ne forte conculcent eas pedibus suis."
Cum es damnatorum possederunt porcos iens ut salire off sanguinum cliff in abyssum?"

Art Kendall

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

In reply to this post by Jon K Peck

I believe that there are perceptual, cognitive, and pedagogical reasons to have the more verbal operators available.

Wrt perception I have often hoped there was a way to always have things like angle brackets (<,>) and other symbolic operators in larger and bold type or at least forced to have spaces so that eyes could pick up the character stings as different "words". My goal with that is to facilitate the perceptual part of reading the syntax. It has long been known that beginning readers learn more quickly with larger and clearer fonts. For example, I found for myself that the larger font edition of the same Greek into textbook was a lot easier to read. Later when I had more experience, I could even read newspaper sized text. Reading cursive Greek was something I never learned.

An useful study would be what the latency would be between flashing one of the lines below on a screen until (s)he said "if x is greater than y"
if x GE y
if x ge y
if x >= y
if x >= y
if x>=y
It should be fairly easy to build a command to always assure that there is always white space on either side of operators.

It would be interesting if someone did surveys and experiments to see at what developmental stage people use the implicit (tacit), explicit (verbal), and symbolic ways of representing constructs. They could document how quickly people can accurately make out what the symbol is on a monitor, and how quickly they can read aloud what is in the syntax.

It is true that many computer languages and some math contexts use the symbolic operators.
However, SPSS will most often be the closest thing to a computer language that users ever encounter.

I also believe that many natural languages have the implicit constructs underlying those symbols.
My point is that many people have the implicit constructs but do not yet have the explicit verbal constructs.
I believe that as happens in many kinds of learning the path to shorthand goes from implicit to explicit to shorthand. Trying to teach people both the explicit form of constructs they use implicitly, and the shorthand for them at the same time often need to take it via baby steps. For example
(a+b)²=a²+2ab+b^{2

is under stood better if a brief sketch shows the concept

and if parentheses, coefficients, and exponents are made
explicit during early presentations.}
(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [( a*b) + (b*a)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]

(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [( a*b) + (b*a)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]

(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [2(a¹*b¹)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]
with text saying note that the coefficients are {1, 2, 1}   and the exponents are {2,0} {1,1} {0,2}.

In my experience many people who are starting to learn SPSS to do analysis even those with some expertise in number skills such as accountants need to have some of the constructs made explicit. e.g., distinguish great than vs greater than or equal.

These days more people have some experience with spreadsheet software so they have already have down what rows and columns are. At one time it helped beginners to point out that columns went up-and-down and rows went across from side to side. SPSS is no longer something that is learned in graduates school in rigorous fields, but is being taught in undergraduate and workshop settings. In addition, you are familiar with my soapbox that good syntax habits are important for peer reviewer, supervisors, QA reviewers, helpers. etc.

In our times only people who already had a predilection for quantitative matters went through the many barriers to learning programming. Today, automation has taken a lot of the drudgery out of it, but people still have to go through the developmental process that we went through but without some of the drudgery.

I assume that those half dozen places that use those keys all use the same software modules. It would at least be a step forward if the <help> key could bring up a table that had the key images with all tables with the representations in different orders.
symbolic , conventional, and example of use
>     gt     greater than 5 > 3, 2,1
>=    ge    greater or equal to    5 > 5, 4, 2 ...

and another order
greater than     gt    > 5 > 3, 2,1

it would also help if those calculators were larger overall.

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

On 10/22/2013 11:22 AM, Jon K Peck [via SPSSX Discussion] wrote:

My opinion is that the "symbolic" operators are actually more familiar to most people than the "conventional" operators. The former are universally used in mathematical contexts (there is variation in what is used for "not"), and most programming languages also use these. Although Statistics syntax recognizes both, I wouldn't want to perpetuate both styles, and I think it would be confusing to get different pasted results from the same dialog.

There are at least six dialogs or subdialogs that use these buttons

Just my opinion.

Jon Peck (no "h") aka Kim
Senior Software Engineer, IBM
[hidden email]
phone: 720-342-5621

From: Art Kendall <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email],
Date: 10/22/2013 07:51 AM
Subject: [SPSSX-L] option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent by: "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <[hidden email]>

I suggest that
(1) SPSS provide an option to have the "calculator keys" display the conventional operators, the symbolic operators, or both.
(2) SPSS provide an option to have syntax pasted from the GUI use the conventional operators.

Members of this list develop workarounds, that would work with a single menu entry such as the 'automatic indent' one. Perhaps since there are only a handful of the operators it might make a good project for someone who wants to learn creating menu items.

Those who have been on this list know that I advocate the use of the conventional operator rather than symbolic operators to enhance readability. I won't go into why I think readability is crucial.

I do not advocate the conventional operators simply because I used them first. In fact, I learned the use of many symbolic operators while my field was philosophy about 6 years before I learned FORTRAN and SPSS.

Some reasons I advocate conventional operators
-- they require less cognitive load while learning most people have learned concepts of
-- same different while toddlers
-- more than less than about age 3 to 6
-- more or equal than, less or equal than about age 9 to 13
-- most undergrad and older people have not really dealt explicitly with 'and' 'or' 'xor' etc. learning SPSS is the first time these have been explicit rather than tacit knowledge.
-- they are more readable for most people including the analyst her/himself, peer reviewers, supervisors, clients, etc., people looking at the archives.
-- the assignment operator cannot be confused with logical equal operator.
-- Those of us who have used explicit logical operators for some time forget than we had to learn the implicit operators at an early age. The later we learned to make them explicit. Later still we learned to condense into the symbolic operators. It is easy for us to forget the effort it took to learn the thought habits that are automatic. (Or to say we had a severe initiation, so they should too.)
-- Many people learning SPSS at the same time have to learn to turn implicit concepts (and, or, not, no equal, etc.) into explicit concepts. The representations that are closest to the verbal concepts are easiest to learn.
Shorthand usually presumes over-learning longhand.
-- The use of the conventional operators has been one of the areas where SPSS has had an advantage over other packages/languages.
-- Increasingly users have less background in math, stat, methods, measurement etc.

The syntax below shows one workaround. It is also attached for those using Nabble.
[perhaps some list members would test it on some syntax, as I do not have many sets of syntax that do not have the conventional operators)

*Convert symbolic operators to conventional operators. *After using this use <tools> <indent syntax> <Auto indent>. * may need to correct vertical alignment. file handle SyntaxIn /NAME= "C:\something.sps". file handle SyntaxOut /NAME= "C:\something v2.sps". GET DATA /TYPE=TXT /FILE= SyntaxIn /FIXCASE=1 /ARRANGEMENT=FIXED /FIRSTCASE=1 /IMPORTCASE=ALL /VARIABLES= /1 OldSyntaxLine 0-255 A256. string NewSyntaxLine #LeftSide #RightSide(a300). compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">="," ge "). compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<="," le "). compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">", " gt "). compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<", " ge "). compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~="," ne "). compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~", " not "). compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "&", " and "). compute AssignSymbol = char.index(OldSyntaxLine,"="). Compute #LeftSide = char.substr(OldSyntaxLine,1,AssignSymbol). compute #RightSide = substr(OldSyntaxLine,AssignSymbol+1). compute #RightSide = replace(#RightSide, "="," eq "). compute NewSyntaxLine = concat(rtrim(#LeftSide), rtrim(#RightSide)). save outfile = SyntaxOut /keep = NewSyntaxLine.

-- Art Kendall Social Research Consultants

Conventional Operators.sps (1K) Download Attachment
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

View this message in context: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
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Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

Art Kendall

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

In reply to this post by David Marso

your example could be even worse by dropping out white space that is not needed for the machine to parse the text.

do if(blah=blue).
compute mynewvar=somemacrofunction a b c .
else if(blah=green).
compute mynewvar=anotherfunction d e f .
else.
compute mynewvar=-999.
end if.

In the olden days there actually a was a FORTRAN program UNPRETTY that did the opposite of PRETTY.
The purpose of UNPRETTY was to generate code that would result in the same numerical results and formatting, but that would be more difficult to adapt or translate to another language.
It removed all white space that the compiler did not need and
whatever the maximum variable name length was, it generated variable names that length made up of random letters x == > wdthse, y ==> qqqtui, i ==> ixrfgq.

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

On 10/22/2013 12:38 PM, David Marso [via SPSSX Discussion] wrote:

do if (blah = blue).
compute mynewvar = somemacrofunction a b c .
else if (blah = green).
compute mynewvar =anotherfunction d e f .
else.
compute mynewvar = -999.
end if.

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

Albert-Jan Roskam

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

your example could be
even worse by dropping out white space that is not
needed for
the machine to parse the text.

do if(blah=blue).
compute mynewvar=somemacrofunction a b c .
else if(blah=green).
compute mynewvar=anotherfunction d e f .
else.
compute mynewvar=-999.
end if.

=========> "sparse is better than dense!"

In the olden days there actually a was
a FORTRAN
program UNPRETTY that did the opposite of PRETTY.

The purpose of UNPRETTY was to generate code that
would result
in the same numerical results and formatting, but
that would be
more difficult to adapt or translate to another
language.

=========> In Python 2 you can use rot13 encoding to obfuscate code. This is legal, for instance:

# -*- coding: rot13 -*-
qrs fbzrShap(*netf, **xjnetf):
cevag("Uryyb jbeyq!")

fbzrShap(1, 2, 3)

=====================
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command
SIGNOFF SPSSX-L
For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD

John F Hall

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

In reply to this post by Art Kendall

Art says

(a+b)²=a²+2ab+b²is understood better if a brief sketch shows the concept:

This (from my schooldays 60 years ago) might help as well:

← a → ← b →

↑

↓

a²

a x b

↑

↓

b x a

b²

John F Hall (Mr)

[Retired academic survey researcher]

Email: [hidden email]

Website: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com

SPSS start page: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com/spss-without-tears.html

From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Art Kendall
Sent: 23 October 2013 03:54
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

I believe that there are perceptual, cognitive, and pedagogical reasons to have the more verbal operators available.

Wrt perception I have often hoped there was a way to always have things like angle brackets (<,>) and other symbolic operators in larger and bold type or at least forced to have spaces so that eyes could pick up the character stings as different "words". My goal with that is to facilitate the perceptual part of reading the syntax. It has long been known that beginning readers learn more quickly with larger and clearer fonts. For example, I found for myself that the larger font edition of the same Greek into textbook was a lot easier to read. Later when I had more experience, I could even read newspaper sized text. Reading cursive Greek was something I never learned.

An useful study would be what the latency would be between flashing one of the lines below on a screen until (s)he said "if x is greater than y"
if x GE y
if x ge y
if x >= y
if x >= y
if x>=y
It should be fairly easy to build a command to always assure that there is always white space on either side of operators.

It would be interesting if someone did surveys and experiments to see at what developmental stage people use the implicit (tacit), explicit (verbal), and symbolic ways of representing constructs. They could document how quickly people can accurately make out what the symbol is on a monitor, and how quickly they can read aloud what is in the syntax.

It is true that many computer languages and some math contexts use the symbolic operators.
However, SPSS will most often be the closest thing to a computer language that users ever encounter.

I also believe that many natural languages have the implicit constructs underlying those symbols.
My point is that many people have the implicit constructs but do not yet have the explicit verbal constructs.
I believe that as happens in many kinds of learning the path to shorthand goes from implicit to explicit to shorthand. Trying to teach people both the explicit form of constructs they use implicitly, and the shorthand for them at the same time often need to take it via baby steps. For example
(a+b)²=a²+2ab+b^{2
is under stood better if a brief sketch shows the concept
and if parentheses, coefficients, and exponents are made explicit during early presentations.}
(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [( a*b) + (b*a)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]

(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [( a*b) + (b*a)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]

(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [2(a¹*b¹)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]
with text saying note that the coefficients are {1, 2, 1}   and the exponents are {2,0} {1,1} {0,2}.

In my experience many people who are starting to learn SPSS to do analysis even those with some expertise in number skills such as accountants need to have some of the constructs made explicit. e.g., distinguish great than vs greater than or equal.

These days more people have some experience with spreadsheet software so they have already have down what rows and columns are. At one time it helped beginners to point out that columns went up-and-down and rows went across from side to side. SPSS is no longer something that is learned in graduates school in rigorous fields, but is being taught in undergraduate and workshop settings. In addition, you are familiar with my soapbox that good syntax habits are important for peer reviewer, supervisors, QA reviewers, helpers. etc.

In our times only people who already had a predilection for quantitative matters went through the many barriers to learning programming. Today, automation has taken a lot of the drudgery out of it, but people still have to go through the developmental process that we went through but without some of the drudgery.

I assume that those half dozen places that use those keys all use the same software modules. It would at least be a step forward if the <help> key could bring up a table that had the key images with all tables with the representations in different orders.
symbolic , conventional, and example of use
>     gt     greater than 5 > 3, 2,1
>=    ge    greater or equal to    5 > 5, 4, 2 ...

and another order
greater than     gt    > 5 > 3, 2,1

it would also help if those calculators were larger overall.

Art Kendall

Social Research Consultants

On 10/22/2013 11:22 AM, Jon K Peck [via SPSSX Discussion] wrote:

My opinion is that the "symbolic" operators are actually more familiar to most people than the "conventional" operators. The former are universally used in mathematical contexts (there is variation in what is used for "not"), and most programming languages also use these. Although Statistics syntax recognizes both, I wouldn't want to perpetuate both styles, and I think it would be confusing to get different pasted results from the same dialog.

There are at least six dialogs or subdialogs that use these buttons

Just my opinion.

Jon Peck (no "h") aka Kim
Senior Software Engineer, IBM
[hidden email]
phone: 720-342-5621

From: Art Kendall <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email],
Date: 10/22/2013 07:51 AM
Subject: [SPSSX-L] option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent by: "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <[hidden email]>

I suggest that
(1) SPSS provide an option to have the "calculator keys" display the conventional operators, the symbolic operators, or both.
(2) SPSS provide an option to have syntax pasted from the GUI use the conventional operators.

Members of this list develop workarounds, that would work with a single menu entry such as the 'automatic indent' one. Perhaps since there are only a handful of the operators it might make a good project for someone who wants to learn creating menu items.

Those who have been on this list know that I advocate the use of the conventional operator rather than symbolic operators to enhance readability. I won't go into why I think readability is crucial.

I do not advocate the conventional operators simply because I used them first. In fact, I learned the use of many symbolic operators while my field was philosophy about 6 years before I learned FORTRAN and SPSS.

Some reasons I advocate conventional operators
-- they require less cognitive load while learning most people have learned concepts of
-- same different while toddlers
-- more than less than about age 3 to 6
-- more or equal than, less or equal than about age 9 to 13
-- most undergrad and older people have not really dealt explicitly with 'and' 'or' 'xor' etc. learning SPSS is the first time these have been explicit rather than tacit knowledge.
-- they are more readable for most people including the analyst her/himself, peer reviewers, supervisors, clients, etc., people looking at the archives.
-- the assignment operator cannot be confused with logical equal operator.
-- Those of us who have used explicit logical operators for some time forget than we had to learn the implicit operators at an early age. The later we learned to make them explicit. Later still we learned to condense into the symbolic operators. It is easy for us to forget the effort it took to learn the thought habits that are automatic. (Or to say we had a severe initiation, so they should too.)
-- Many people learning SPSS at the same time have to learn to turn implicit concepts (and, or, not, no equal, etc.) into explicit concepts. The representations that are closest to the verbal concepts are easiest to learn.
Shorthand usually presumes over-learning longhand.
-- The use of the conventional operators has been one of the areas where SPSS has had an advantage over other packages/languages.
-- Increasingly users have less background in math, stat, methods, measurement etc.

The syntax below shows one workaround. It is also attached for those using Nabble.
[perhaps some list members would test it on some syntax, as I do not have many sets of syntax that do not have the conventional operators)

*Convert symbolic operators to conventional operators.
*After using this use <tools> <indent syntax> <Auto indent>.
* may need to correct vertical alignment.
file handle SyntaxIn /NAME=
"C:\something.sps".
file handle SyntaxOut /NAME=
"C:\something v2.sps".
GET DATA /TYPE=TXT
/FILE= SyntaxIn
/FIXCASE=1
/ARRANGEMENT=FIXED
/FIRSTCASE=1
/IMPORTCASE=ALL
/VARIABLES=
/1 OldSyntaxLine 0-255 A256.
string NewSyntaxLine #LeftSide #RightSide(a300).
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">="," ge ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<="," le ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">", " gt ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<", " ge ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~="," ne ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~", " not ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "&", " and ").
compute AssignSymbol = char.index(OldSyntaxLine,"=").
Compute #LeftSide = char.substr(OldSyntaxLine,1,AssignSymbol).
compute #RightSide = substr(OldSyntaxLine,AssignSymbol+1).
compute #RightSide = replace(#RightSide, "="," eq ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = concat(rtrim(#LeftSide), rtrim(#RightSide)).
save outfile = SyntaxOut /keep = NewSyntaxLine.

--
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

Conventional Operators.sps (1K) Download Attachment
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants
View this message in context: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

If you reply to this email, your message will be added to the discussion below:
http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/option-to-have-calculator-in-GUI-and-display-conventional-operators-tp5722656p5722659.html
To start a new topic under SPSSX Discussion, email [hidden email]
To unsubscribe from SPSSX Discussion, click here.
NAML

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

View this message in context: Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

David Marso

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Administrator

In reply to this post by Albert-Jan Roskam

" =========> In Python 2 you can use rot13 encoding to obfuscate code. This is legal, for instance:

# -*- coding: rot13 -*-
qrs fbzrShap(*netf, **xjnetf):
cevag("Uryyb jbeyq!")

fbzrShap(1, 2, 3)

===================== "

UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR ==>
All Klingons proceed to battle stations...

Albert-Jan Roskam wrote

your example could be
even worse by dropping out white space that is not
needed for
the machine to parse the text.

do if(blah=blue).
compute mynewvar=somemacrofunction a b c .
else if(blah=green).
compute mynewvar=anotherfunction d e f .
else.
compute mynewvar=-999.
end if.

=========> "sparse is better than dense!"

In the olden days there actually a was
a FORTRAN
program UNPRETTY that did the opposite of PRETTY.

The purpose of UNPRETTY was to generate code that
would result
in the same numerical results and formatting, but
that would be
more difficult to adapt or translate to another
language.

=========> In Python 2 you can use rot13 encoding to obfuscate code. This is legal, for instance:

# -*- coding: rot13 -*-
qrs fbzrShap(*netf, **xjnetf):
cevag("Uryyb jbeyq!")

fbzrShap(1, 2, 3)

=====================
To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to
[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
command. To leave the list, send the command
SIGNOFF SPSSX-L
For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD

David Marso

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Administrator

In reply to this post by John F Hall

Nice example John!

Art Kendall

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

In reply to this post by John F Hall

From the fact that you had that in your school days is a clue that you went to scholl in the UK.

It was not in the text books when I went to school nor when I worked in school systems in the US.

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

On 10/23/2013 5:06 AM, John F Hall [via SPSSX Discussion] wrote:

Art says

(a+b)²=a²+2ab+b²is understood better if a brief sketch shows the concept:

This (from my schooldays 60 years ago) might help as well:

                            ← a →                                          ← b →



↑

a

↓

       a²

                                 a x b

↑

b

↓

    b x a

b²

John F Hall (Mr)

[Retired academic survey researcher]

Email:   [hidden email]

Website: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com

SPSS start page: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com/spss-without-tears.html





From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Art Kendall
Sent: 23 October 2013 03:54
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
I believe that there are perceptual, cognitive, and pedagogical reasons to have the more verbal operators available.

Wrt perception I have often hoped there was a way to always have things like angle brackets (<,>) and other symbolic operators in larger and bold type or at least forced to have spaces so that eyes could pick up the character stings as different "words". My goal with that is to facilitate the perceptual part of reading the syntax. It has long been known that beginning readers learn more quickly with larger and clearer fonts. For example, I found for myself that the larger font edition of the same Greek into textbook was a lot easier to read. Later when I had more experience, I could even read newspaper sized text. Reading cursive Greek was something I never learned.

An useful study would be what the latency would be between flashing one of the lines below on a screen until (s)he said "if x is greater than y"
if x GE y
if x ge y
if x >= y
if x >= y
if x>=y
It should be fairly easy to build a command to always assure that there is always white space on either side of operators.

It would be interesting if someone did surveys and experiments to see at what developmental stage people use the implicit (tacit), explicit (verbal), and symbolic ways of representing constructs. They could document how quickly people can accurately make out what the symbol is on a monitor, and how quickly they can read aloud what is in the syntax.

It is true that many computer languages and some math contexts use the symbolic operators.
However, SPSS will most often be the closest thing to a computer language that users ever encounter.

I also believe that many natural languages have the implicit constructs underlying those symbols.
My point is that many people have the implicit constructs but do not yet have the explicit verbal constructs.
I believe that as happens in many kinds of learning the path to shorthand goes from implicit to explicit to shorthand. Trying to teach people both the explicit form of constructs they use implicitly, and the shorthand for them at the same time often need to take it via baby steps. For example
(a+b)²=a²+2ab+b^{2

is under stood better if a brief sketch shows the
concept

and if parentheses, coefficients, and exponents are
made explicit during early presentations.}
(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [( a*b) + (b*a)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]

(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [( a*b) + (b*a)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]

(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [2(a¹*b¹)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]
with text saying note that the coefficients are {1, 2, 1}   and the exponents are {2,0} {1,1} {0,2}.

In my experience many people who are starting to learn SPSS to do analysis even those with some expertise in number skills such as accountants need to have some of the constructs made explicit. e.g., distinguish great than vs greater than or equal.

These days more people have some experience with spreadsheet software so they have already have down what rows and columns are. At one time it helped beginners to point out that columns went up-and-down and rows went across from side to side. SPSS is no longer something that is learned in graduates school in rigorous fields, but is being taught in undergraduate and workshop settings. In addition, you are familiar with my soapbox that good syntax habits are important for peer reviewer, supervisors, QA reviewers, helpers. etc.

In our times only people who already had a predilection for quantitative matters went through the many barriers to learning programming. Today, automation has taken a lot of the drudgery out of it, but people still have to go through the developmental process that we went through but without some of the drudgery.

I assume that those half dozen places that use those keys all use the same software modules. It would at least be a step forward if the <help> key could bring up a table that had the key images with all tables with the representations in different orders.
symbolic , conventional, and example of use
>     gt     greater than 5 > 3, 2,1
>=    ge    greater or equal to    5 > 5, 4, 2 ...

and another order
greater than     gt    > 5 > 3, 2,1

it would also help if those calculators were larger overall.
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants
On 10/22/2013 11:22 AM, Jon K Peck [via SPSSX Discussion] wrote:
My opinion is that the "symbolic" operators are actually more familiar to most people than the "conventional" operators. The former are universally used in mathematical contexts (there is variation in what is used for "not"), and most programming languages also use these. Although Statistics syntax recognizes both, I wouldn't want to perpetuate both styles, and I think it would be confusing to get different pasted results from the same dialog.

There are at least six dialogs or subdialogs that use these buttons

Just my opinion.

Jon Peck (no "h") aka Kim
Senior Software Engineer, IBM
[hidden email]
phone: 720-342-5621

From: Art Kendall <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email],
Date: 10/22/2013 07:51 AM
Subject: [SPSSX-L] option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent by: "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <[hidden email]>

I suggest that
(1) SPSS provide an option to have the "calculator keys" display the conventional operators, the symbolic operators, or both.
(2) SPSS provide an option to have syntax pasted from the GUI use the conventional operators.

Members of this list develop workarounds, that would work with a single menu entry such as the 'automatic indent' one. Perhaps since there are only a handful of the operators it might make a good project for someone who wants to learn creating menu items.

Those who have been on this list know that I advocate the use of the conventional operator rather than symbolic operators to enhance readability. I won't go into why I think readability is crucial.

I do not advocate the conventional operators simply because I used them first. In fact, I learned the use of many symbolic operators while my field was philosophy about 6 years before I learned FORTRAN and SPSS.

Some reasons I advocate conventional operators
-- they require less cognitive load while learning most people have learned concepts of
-- same different while toddlers
-- more than less than about age 3 to 6
-- more or equal than, less or equal than about age 9 to 13
-- most undergrad and older people have not really dealt explicitly with 'and' 'or' 'xor' etc. learning SPSS is the first time these have been explicit rather than tacit knowledge.
-- they are more readable for most people including the analyst her/himself, peer reviewers, supervisors, clients, etc., people looking at the archives.
-- the assignment operator cannot be confused with logical equal operator.
-- Those of us who have used explicit logical operators for some time forget than we had to learn the implicit operators at an early age. The later we learned to make them explicit. Later still we learned to condense into the symbolic operators. It is easy for us to forget the effort it took to learn the thought habits that are automatic. (Or to say we had a severe initiation, so they should too.)
-- Many people learning SPSS at the same time have to learn to turn implicit concepts (and, or, not, no equal, etc.) into explicit concepts. The representations that are closest to the verbal concepts are easiest to learn.
Shorthand usually presumes over-learning longhand.
-- The use of the conventional operators has been one of the areas where SPSS has had an advantage over other packages/languages.
-- Increasingly users have less background in math, stat, methods, measurement etc.

The syntax below shows one workaround. It is also attached for those using Nabble.
[perhaps some list members would test it on some syntax, as I do not have many sets of syntax that do not have the conventional operators)

*Convert symbolic operators to conventional operators.
*After using this use <tools> <indent syntax> <Auto indent>.
* may need to correct vertical alignment.
file handle SyntaxIn /NAME=
"C:\something.sps".
file handle SyntaxOut /NAME=
"C:\something v2.sps".
GET DATA /TYPE=TXT
/FILE= SyntaxIn
/FIXCASE=1
/ARRANGEMENT=FIXED
/FIRSTCASE=1
/IMPORTCASE=ALL
/VARIABLES=
/1 OldSyntaxLine 0-255 A256.
string NewSyntaxLine #LeftSide #RightSide(a300).
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">="," ge ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<="," le ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">", " gt ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<", " ge ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~="," ne ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~", " not ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "&", " and ").
compute AssignSymbol = char.index(OldSyntaxLine,"=").
Compute #LeftSide = char.substr(OldSyntaxLine,1,AssignSymbol).
compute #RightSide = substr(OldSyntaxLine,AssignSymbol+1).
compute #RightSide = replace(#RightSide, "="," eq ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = concat(rtrim(#LeftSide), rtrim(#RightSide)).
save outfile = SyntaxOut /keep = NewSyntaxLine.

--
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

Conventional Operators.sps (1K) Download Attachment

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

View this message in context: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

If you reply to this email, your message will be added to the discussion below:

http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/option-to-have-calculator-in-GUI-and-display-conventional-operators-tp5722656p5722659.html

To start a new topic under SPSSX Discussion, email [hidden email]
To unsubscribe from SPSSX Discussion, click here.
NAML

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

View this message in context: Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
If you reply to this email, your message will be added to the discussion below:
http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/option-to-have-calculator-in-GUI-and-display-conventional-operators-tp5722656p5722667.html

To start a new topic under SPSSX Discussion, email [hidden email]
To unsubscribe from SPSSX Discussion, click here.
NAML

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

John F Hall

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Art

Yes, UK (High school for Boys, Scarborough, Yorkshire). I don’t think it came from a book. More likely it was during an afternoon when cricket or rugby were cancelled owing to inclement weather and we got French, Chess or (impromptu) Maths instead. I vaguely remember a new method of teaching using wooden blocks in the 1970s using the same idea. Perhaps we should ask some Maths teachers?

John

From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Art Kendall
Sent: 25 October 2013 23:29
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

From the fact that you had that in your school days is a clue that you went to scholl in the UK.

It was not in the text books when I went to school nor when I worked in school systems in the US.

Art Kendall

Social Research Consultants

On 10/23/2013 5:06 AM, John F Hall [via SPSSX Discussion] wrote:

Art says

(a+b)²=a²+2ab+b²is understood better if a brief sketch shows the concept:

This (from my schooldays 60 years ago) might help as well:

                        ← a →                                          ← b →


↑
a
↓

       a²

                                 a x b

↑
b
↓

    b x a

b²

John F Hall (Mr)
[Retired academic survey researcher]

Email: [hidden email]
Website: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com
SPSS start page: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com/spss-without-tears.html



From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Art Kendall
Sent: 23 October 2013 03:54
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
I believe that there are perceptual, cognitive, and pedagogical reasons to have the more verbal operators available.

Wrt perception I have often hoped there was a way to always have things like angle brackets (<,>) and other symbolic operators in larger and bold type or at least forced to have spaces so that eyes could pick up the character stings as different "words". My goal with that is to facilitate the perceptual part of reading the syntax. It has long been known that beginning readers learn more quickly with larger and clearer fonts. For example, I found for myself that the larger font edition of the same Greek into textbook was a lot easier to read. Later when I had more experience, I could even read newspaper sized text. Reading cursive Greek was something I never learned.

An useful study would be what the latency would be between flashing one of the lines below on a screen until (s)he said "if x is greater than y"
if x GE y
if x ge y
if x >= y
if x >= y
if x>=y
It should be fairly easy to build a command to always assure that there is always white space on either side of operators.

It would be interesting if someone did surveys and experiments to see at what developmental stage people use the implicit (tacit), explicit (verbal), and symbolic ways of representing constructs. They could document how quickly people can accurately make out what the symbol is on a monitor, and how quickly they can read aloud what is in the syntax.

It is true that many computer languages and some math contexts use the symbolic operators.
However, SPSS will most often be the closest thing to a computer language that users ever encounter.

I also believe that many natural languages have the implicit constructs underlying those symbols.
My point is that many people have the implicit constructs but do not yet have the explicit verbal constructs.
I believe that as happens in many kinds of learning the path to shorthand goes from implicit to explicit to shorthand. Trying to teach people both the explicit form of constructs they use implicitly, and the shorthand for them at the same time often need to take it via baby steps. For example
(a+b)²=a²+2ab+b^{2
is under stood better if a brief sketch shows the concept
and if parentheses, coefficients, and exponents are made explicit during early presentations.}
(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [( a*b) + (b*a)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]

(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [( a*b) + (b*a)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]

(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [2(a¹*b¹)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]
with text saying note that the coefficients are {1, 2, 1}   and the exponents are {2,0} {1,1} {0,2}.

In my experience many people who are starting to learn SPSS to do analysis even those with some expertise in number skills such as accountants need to have some of the constructs made explicit. e.g., distinguish great than vs greater than or equal.

These days more people have some experience with spreadsheet software so they have already have down what rows and columns are. At one time it helped beginners to point out that columns went up-and-down and rows went across from side to side. SPSS is no longer something that is learned in graduates school in rigorous fields, but is being taught in undergraduate and workshop settings. In addition, you are familiar with my soapbox that good syntax habits are important for peer reviewer, supervisors, QA reviewers, helpers. etc.

In our times only people who already had a predilection for quantitative matters went through the many barriers to learning programming. Today, automation has taken a lot of the drudgery out of it, but people still have to go through the developmental process that we went through but without some of the drudgery.

I assume that those half dozen places that use those keys all use the same software modules. It would at least be a step forward if the <help> key could bring up a table that had the key images with all tables with the representations in different orders.
symbolic , conventional, and example of use
>     gt     greater than 5 > 3, 2,1
>=    ge    greater or equal to    5 > 5, 4, 2 ...

and another order
greater than     gt    > 5 > 3, 2,1

it would also help if those calculators were larger overall.
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants
On 10/22/2013 11:22 AM, Jon K Peck [via SPSSX Discussion] wrote:
My opinion is that the "symbolic" operators are actually more familiar to most people than the "conventional" operators. The former are universally used in mathematical contexts (there is variation in what is used for "not"), and most programming languages also use these. Although Statistics syntax recognizes both, I wouldn't want to perpetuate both styles, and I think it would be confusing to get different pasted results from the same dialog.

There are at least six dialogs or subdialogs that use these buttons

Just my opinion.

Jon Peck (no "h") aka Kim
Senior Software Engineer, IBM
[hidden email]
phone: 720-342-5621

From: Art Kendall <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email],
Date: 10/22/2013 07:51 AM
Subject: [SPSSX-L] option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent by: "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <[hidden email]>

I suggest that
(1) SPSS provide an option to have the "calculator keys" display the conventional operators, the symbolic operators, or both.
(2) SPSS provide an option to have syntax pasted from the GUI use the conventional operators.

Members of this list develop workarounds, that would work with a single menu entry such as the 'automatic indent' one. Perhaps since there are only a handful of the operators it might make a good project for someone who wants to learn creating menu items.

Those who have been on this list know that I advocate the use of the conventional operator rather than symbolic operators to enhance readability. I won't go into why I think readability is crucial.

I do not advocate the conventional operators simply because I used them first. In fact, I learned the use of many symbolic operators while my field was philosophy about 6 years before I learned FORTRAN and SPSS.

Some reasons I advocate conventional operators
-- they require less cognitive load while learning most people have learned concepts of
-- same different while toddlers
-- more than less than about age 3 to 6
-- more or equal than, less or equal than about age 9 to 13
-- most undergrad and older people have not really dealt explicitly with 'and' 'or' 'xor' etc. learning SPSS is the first time these have been explicit rather than tacit knowledge.
-- they are more readable for most people including the analyst her/himself, peer reviewers, supervisors, clients, etc., people looking at the archives.
-- the assignment operator cannot be confused with logical equal operator.
-- Those of us who have used explicit logical operators for some time forget than we had to learn the implicit operators at an early age. The later we learned to make them explicit. Later still we learned to condense into the symbolic operators. It is easy for us to forget the effort it took to learn the thought habits that are automatic. (Or to say we had a severe initiation, so they should too.)
-- Many people learning SPSS at the same time have to learn to turn implicit concepts (and, or, not, no equal, etc.) into explicit concepts. The representations that are closest to the verbal concepts are easiest to learn.
Shorthand usually presumes over-learning longhand.
-- The use of the conventional operators has been one of the areas where SPSS has had an advantage over other packages/languages.
-- Increasingly users have less background in math, stat, methods, measurement etc.

The syntax below shows one workaround. It is also attached for those using Nabble.
[perhaps some list members would test it on some syntax, as I do not have many sets of syntax that do not have the conventional operators)

*Convert symbolic operators to conventional operators.
*After using this use <tools> <indent syntax> <Auto indent>.
* may need to correct vertical alignment.
file handle SyntaxIn /NAME=
"C:\something.sps".
file handle SyntaxOut /NAME=
"C:\something v2.sps".
GET DATA /TYPE=TXT
/FILE= SyntaxIn
/FIXCASE=1
/ARRANGEMENT=FIXED
/FIRSTCASE=1
/IMPORTCASE=ALL
/VARIABLES=
/1 OldSyntaxLine 0-255 A256.
string NewSyntaxLine #LeftSide #RightSide(a300).
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">="," ge ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<="," le ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">", " gt ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<", " ge ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~="," ne ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~", " not ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "&", " and ").
compute AssignSymbol = char.index(OldSyntaxLine,"=").
Compute #LeftSide = char.substr(OldSyntaxLine,1,AssignSymbol).
compute #RightSide = substr(OldSyntaxLine,AssignSymbol+1).
compute #RightSide = replace(#RightSide, "="," eq ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = concat(rtrim(#LeftSide), rtrim(#RightSide)).
save outfile = SyntaxOut /keep = NewSyntaxLine.

--
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

Conventional Operators.sps (1K) Download Attachment
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants
View this message in context: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

If you reply to this email, your message will be added to the discussion below:
http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/option-to-have-calculator-in-GUI-and-display-conventional-operators-tp5722656p5722659.html
To start a new topic under SPSSX Discussion, email [hidden email]
To unsubscribe from SPSSX Discussion, click here.
NAML

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

View this message in context: Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
If you reply to this email, your message will be added to the discussion below:
http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/option-to-have-calculator-in-GUI-and-display-conventional-operators-tp5722656p5722667.html
To start a new topic under SPSSX Discussion, email [hidden email]
To unsubscribe from SPSSX Discussion, click here.
NAML

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

View this message in context: Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Art Kendall

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Any people on the list have teenagers who would be taking algebra now?

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

On 10/26/2013 1:54 AM, John F Hall [via SPSSX Discussion] wrote:

Art

Yes, UK (High school for Boys, Scarborough, Yorkshire). I don’t think it came from a book. More likely it was during an afternoon when cricket or rugby were cancelled owing to inclement weather and we got French, Chess or (impromptu) Maths instead. I vaguely remember a new method of teaching using wooden blocks in the 1970s using the same idea. Perhaps we should ask some Maths teachers?

John

From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Art Kendall
Sent: 25 October 2013 23:29
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
From the fact that you had that in your school days is a clue that you went to scholl in the UK.

It was not in the text books when I went to school nor when I worked in school systems in the US.
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants
On 10/23/2013 5:06 AM, John F Hall [via SPSSX Discussion] wrote:
Art says

(a+b)²=a²+2ab+b²is understood better if a brief sketch shows the concept:

This (from my schooldays 60 years ago) might help as well:

                        ← a →                                          ← b →



↑

a

↓

       a²

                                 a x b

↑

b

↓

    b x a

b²

John F Hall (Mr)

[Retired academic survey researcher]

Email: [hidden email]

Website: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com

SPSS start page: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com/spss-without-tears.html





From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Art Kendall
Sent: 23 October 2013 03:54
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
I believe that there are perceptual, cognitive, and pedagogical reasons to have the more verbal operators available.

Wrt perception I have often hoped there was a way to always have things like angle brackets (<,>) and other symbolic operators in larger and bold type or at least forced to have spaces so that eyes could pick up the character stings as different "words". My goal with that is to facilitate the perceptual part of reading the syntax. It has long been known that beginning readers learn more quickly with larger and clearer fonts. For example, I found for myself that the larger font edition of the same Greek into textbook was a lot easier to read. Later when I had more experience, I could even read newspaper sized text. Reading cursive Greek was something I never learned.

An useful study would be what the latency would be between flashing one of the lines below on a screen until (s)he said "if x is greater than y"
if x GE y
if x ge y
if x >= y
if x >= y
if x>=y
It should be fairly easy to build a command to always assure that there is always white space on either side of operators.

It would be interesting if someone did surveys and experiments to see at what developmental stage people use the implicit (tacit), explicit (verbal), and symbolic ways of representing constructs. They could document how quickly people can accurately make out what the symbol is on a monitor, and how quickly they can read aloud what is in the syntax.

It is true that many computer languages and some math contexts use the symbolic operators.
However, SPSS will most often be the closest thing to a computer language that users ever encounter.

I also believe that many natural languages have the implicit constructs underlying those symbols.
My point is that many people have the implicit constructs but do not yet have the explicit verbal constructs.
I believe that as happens in many kinds of learning the path to shorthand goes from implicit to explicit to shorthand. Trying to teach people both the explicit form of constructs they use implicitly, and the shorthand for them at the same time often need to take it via baby steps. For example
(a+b)²=a²+2ab+b^{2

is under stood better if a brief sketch shows the
concept

and if parentheses, coefficients, and exponents
are made explicit during early presentations.}
(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [( a*b) + (b*a)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]

(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [( a*b) + (b*a)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]

(a+b)²=[1*(a²*b⁰)] + [2(a¹*b¹)] + [1*( a⁰*b²)]
with text saying note that the coefficients are {1, 2, 1}   and the exponents are {2,0} {1,1} {0,2}.

In my experience many people who are starting to learn SPSS to do analysis even those with some expertise in number skills such as accountants need to have some of the constructs made explicit. e.g., distinguish great than vs greater than or equal.

These days more people have some experience with spreadsheet software so they have already have down what rows and columns are. At one time it helped beginners to point out that columns went up-and-down and rows went across from side to side. SPSS is no longer something that is learned in graduates school in rigorous fields, but is being taught in undergraduate and workshop settings. In addition, you are familiar with my soapbox that good syntax habits are important for peer reviewer, supervisors, QA reviewers, helpers. etc.

In our times only people who already had a predilection for quantitative matters went through the many barriers to learning programming. Today, automation has taken a lot of the drudgery out of it, but people still have to go through the developmental process that we went through but without some of the drudgery.

I assume that those half dozen places that use those keys all use the same software modules. It would at least be a step forward if the <help> key could bring up a table that had the key images with all tables with the representations in different orders.
symbolic , conventional, and example of use
>     gt     greater than 5 > 3, 2,1
>=    ge    greater or equal to    5 > 5, 4, 2 ...

and another order
greater than     gt    > 5 > 3, 2,1

it would also help if those calculators were larger overall.
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants
On 10/22/2013 11:22 AM, Jon K Peck [via SPSSX Discussion] wrote:
My opinion is that the "symbolic" operators are actually more familiar to most people than the "conventional" operators. The former are universally used in mathematical contexts (there is variation in what is used for "not"), and most programming languages also use these. Although Statistics syntax recognizes both, I wouldn't want to perpetuate both styles, and I think it would be confusing to get different pasted results from the same dialog.

There are at least six dialogs or subdialogs that use these buttons

Just my opinion.

Jon Peck (no "h") aka Kim
Senior Software Engineer, IBM
[hidden email]
phone: 720-342-5621

From: Art Kendall <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email],
Date: 10/22/2013 07:51 AM
Subject: [SPSSX-L] option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent by: "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <[hidden email]>

I suggest that
(1) SPSS provide an option to have the "calculator keys" display the conventional operators, the symbolic operators, or both.
(2) SPSS provide an option to have syntax pasted from the GUI use the conventional operators.

Members of this list develop workarounds, that would work with a single menu entry such as the 'automatic indent' one. Perhaps since there are only a handful of the operators it might make a good project for someone who wants to learn creating menu items.

Those who have been on this list know that I advocate the use of the conventional operator rather than symbolic operators to enhance readability. I won't go into why I think readability is crucial.

I do not advocate the conventional operators simply because I used them first. In fact, I learned the use of many symbolic operators while my field was philosophy about 6 years before I learned FORTRAN and SPSS.

Some reasons I advocate conventional operators
-- they require less cognitive load while learning most people have learned concepts of
-- same different while toddlers
-- more than less than about age 3 to 6
-- more or equal than, less or equal than about age 9 to 13
-- most undergrad and older people have not really dealt explicitly with 'and' 'or' 'xor' etc. learning SPSS is the first time these have been explicit rather than tacit knowledge.
-- they are more readable for most people including the analyst her/himself, peer reviewers, supervisors, clients, etc., people looking at the archives.
-- the assignment operator cannot be confused with logical equal operator.
-- Those of us who have used explicit logical operators for some time forget than we had to learn the implicit operators at an early age. The later we learned to make them explicit. Later still we learned to condense into the symbolic operators. It is easy for us to forget the effort it took to learn the thought habits that are automatic. (Or to say we had a severe initiation, so they should too.)
-- Many people learning SPSS at the same time have to learn to turn implicit concepts (and, or, not, no equal, etc.) into explicit concepts. The representations that are closest to the verbal concepts are easiest to learn.
Shorthand usually presumes over-learning longhand.
-- The use of the conventional operators has been one of the areas where SPSS has had an advantage over other packages/languages.
-- Increasingly users have less background in math, stat, methods, measurement etc.

The syntax below shows one workaround. It is also attached for those using Nabble.
[perhaps some list members would test it on some syntax, as I do not have many sets of syntax that do not have the conventional operators)

*Convert symbolic operators to conventional operators.
*After using this use <tools> <indent syntax> <Auto indent>.
* may need to correct vertical alignment.
file handle SyntaxIn /NAME=
"C:\something.sps".
file handle SyntaxOut /NAME=
"C:\something v2.sps".
GET DATA /TYPE=TXT
/FILE= SyntaxIn
/FIXCASE=1
/ARRANGEMENT=FIXED
/FIRSTCASE=1
/IMPORTCASE=ALL
/VARIABLES=
/1 OldSyntaxLine 0-255 A256.
string NewSyntaxLine #LeftSide #RightSide(a300).
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">="," ge ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<="," le ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, ">", " gt ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "<", " ge ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~="," ne ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "~", " not ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = replace(OldSyntaxLine, "&", " and ").
compute AssignSymbol = char.index(OldSyntaxLine,"=").
Compute #LeftSide = char.substr(OldSyntaxLine,1,AssignSymbol).
compute #RightSide = substr(OldSyntaxLine,AssignSymbol+1).
compute #RightSide = replace(#RightSide, "="," eq ").
compute NewSyntaxLine = concat(rtrim(#LeftSide), rtrim(#RightSide)).
save outfile = SyntaxOut /keep = NewSyntaxLine.

--
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

Conventional Operators.sps (1K) Download Attachment

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

View this message in context: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

If you reply to this email, your message will be added to the discussion below:

http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/option-to-have-calculator-in-GUI-and-display-conventional-operators-tp5722656p5722659.html

To start a new topic under SPSSX Discussion, email [hidden email]
To unsubscribe from SPSSX Discussion, click here.
NAML

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

View this message in context: Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
If you reply to this email, your message will be added to the discussion below:

http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/option-to-have-calculator-in-GUI-and-display-conventional-operators-tp5722656p5722667.html

To start a new topic under SPSSX Discussion, email [hidden email]
To unsubscribe from SPSSX Discussion, click here.
NAML
Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

View this message in context: Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators
Sent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
If you reply to this email, your message will be added to the discussion below:
http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/option-to-have-calculator-in-GUI-and-display-conventional-operators-tp5722656p5722743.html

To start a new topic under SPSSX Discussion, email [hidden email]
To unsubscribe from SPSSX Discussion, click here.
NAML

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR ==> All Klingons proceed to battle stations...

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

Re: option to have "calculator" in GUI and display conventional operators

UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR ==>
All Klingons proceed to battle stations...