[Unified Braille For All] Four minor typos in Code Comparison 1

[Susan Osterhaus]

Hi Robert and All,

I'm so sorry that I misinterpreted what you said. These ghost parentheses
just drive me crazy, and I superimposed my discomfort on you. You are
absolutely correct regarding the example identifier on the brf document. I
have made that correction and the others you mentioned, and I have attached
a new corrected brf file for everyone. Please let me know if you find any
further errors. The pdf file does not contain this error.

I also agree that both NUBS and UEB do add something that is not found in
print in some math expressions containing superscripts, but I prefer what
NUBS and Nemeth do - a simple return to baseline indicator (which is not
even needed if a space follows the superscript, which is the case in all
these examples), which I wish print had invented. It just seems so logical
to me.

As the Example 6 in Part 2 (taken straight from the ICEB
technical manual) illustrates, UEB starts out placing a grade 1 symbol
indicator before the superscript indicator until we get to the last sample,
where it suddenly introduces a grade 1 word indicator and new grouping
symbols that are not included in print.  Why not be consistent throughout,
instead of changing in mid-stream? This is ambiguous to me. In the general
ed classroom, when the teacher starts to read a problem that eventually
contains a superscript, the braille reader/writer won't know how to begin
writing the expression until the teacher completes the expression. If it's
a long one, they will have already forgotten what the expression was.

Example 4 in Part 2 is a “simple numeric fraction” and the UEB version is
actually shorter than either the Nemeth or NUBS versions. However, as soon
as the fraction becomes a “general fraction,” in Example 5, the fraction
format completely changes and occupies more cell space. By the way, these
terms of “simple numeric fraction” and “general fraction” will never be
used in the regular ed math classroom. These are unique to UEB. Again, why
not be consistent throughout, instead of changing in mid-stream? If the
regular ed elementary teacher starts to read a fraction to their students
and asks them to write it down, how is the braille reader/writer going to
know how to begin the fraction in UEB? The math teacher will not announce
that it is a simple numeric fraction or a general fraction. Again, this is
confusing to me.

Best wishes,

Susan


On Sat, May 12, 2012 at 4:46 PM, Robert Englebretson
<renglebrets at gmail.com>wrote:

> Susan and All,
>
>
> I hate to belabor the point about what were obviously four unintended
> typos, but you have completely misconstrued what I said about the typo in
> example 6.  Here is what I said:
>
> "p. 6, the very last line of the page, the closing parenthesis in the
> example identifier is wrong.  It's transcribed here as dots 2-345, but
> again, should
> actually be written as dots 5-345."
>
> Note that I said "example identifier" not "example".  The example
> identifier here is the  (4) at the beginning of the line.  The closing
> parenthesis in the UEB example identifier is mistranscribed as dots 2-345,
> and I just went back to the BRF file that was sent around yesterday to
> confirm this.  I stand by what I said in my earlier message.
>
> I am fully aware of how superscripts work in UEB, and I was not misreading
> the grouping symbol here.  There is no ambiguity whatsoever in how UEB
> deals with superscripts.  Both UEB and NUBS have ways of dealing with what
> is essentially a problem of linearizing a formatting aspect of print:  NUBS
> does this by including an "extra" symbol not found in print, to show a
> return to baseline, UEB does this by including an "extra" pair of grouping
> symbols not found in print, to make clear that this is a complex exponent.
>  Both add something "extra" to print in this regard, since braille is
> limited to linear format (unless of course someone wants to go the ViewPlus
> route that John Gardener and others were advocating a few years ago.)
>
>
>
> Best,
> --Robert
>
>
>
>
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>



-- 
Susan A Osterhaus
Statewide Mathematics Consultant
Outreach Department
Texas School for the Blind
  and Visually Impaired
1100 West 45th Street
Austin, TX 78756
Phone: 512-206-9305
Fax: 512-206-9320
Website: http://www.tsbvi.edu/math
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