How to explain things.

[ollypenrice]

Explaining things is really quite easy.

1) Identify what the person you're talking to knows already, or assume it is very little.

2) Identify where they would like to be at the end of your explanation.

3) Identify what language they speak. (Not just English but what kind of English...)

4) Lead them from 1 to 2 using 3.

And here is the first paragraph from Pixinsight's introduction to the PixelMath functions.

High-performance, proprietary expression parser/interpreter. PixelMath expressions are plain text strings in common algebraic notation, following a set of syntax rules very similar to the basic C syntax, with extensions and some new operators adapted to manage 2-D images efficiently.

Rest my case.

Olly

[martin_h]

Obvious

[ollypenrice]

Heh, yes indeed.

Paul Dirac said something like, The purpose of science is to say something that has never been said before as simply as possible. The purpose of poetry is precisely the reverse.

Now unless he was joking this shows a feeble grasp of the purpose of poetry but a good grasp of how to write science...

What we often get from software instructions is the worst of both worlds.

Olly

[nephilim]

I'd take one look at the above & either bombard the forum with questions or put the instructions back in the box & straight onto ebay.

Steve

[swag72]

You're not .......... No surely not ............... Harry's not taken you hostage has he? ............ You're not going over to the PixInsight side are you? Oh my!!

[ollypenrice]

You're not .......... No surely not ............... Harry's not taken you hostage has he? ............ You're not going over to the PixInsight side are you? Oh my!!

I like lots of things in PI and I've seen Tom do some great stuff with a routine I don't understand called Multiscale Transform. I'd like to understand it but so far I've found nothing written in a language I speak.

Olly

[swag72]

Have you checked out the PI Forum Olly? Also there's quite a few tutorials knocking around on the net and youtube for PI.

[Photosbykev]

it is a bitch of a programme but very powerful IF you can find the tutorials to guide you through it A lot of cutting edge programmes are written by coding experts who know their field inside and out but have difficulty translating the functions to the average 'layman'. Thank god for youtube tutorials and the forums lol. I've only just found out how to calibrate images and register them in PI but it is a big step up from the likes of DSS

[brantuk]

Hmmmm..... feeling a bit awkward here - I understood the sentence straight off - but I reckon you need a good grounding in computer science to appreciate what it's saying.

Parsers, 'C' programming, and algebraic notation, tend to be covered in the first year of a good undergraduate degree course. 2D and 3D image processing are often specialisms that can be branched into anywhere from the second year onwards. From that point even your parents no longer understand what you're on about.

If anyone would like further explanation - please feel free to apply for a BSc Computer Science degree at any good university. lol

[nightvision]

Empathy makes for a great teacher/communicator but treading the fine-line (effectively) between patronising and informing is an art.

[ollypenrice]

Hmmmm..... feeling a bit awkward here - I understood the sentence straight off - but I reckon you need a good grounding in computer science to appreciate what it's saying.

My rule number one is violated, then. The writer has mistakenly identified his audience as one made up of people with a good grounding in computer science, people who have encountered the terminology in 'the first year of a good degree course' on the subject. Does the writer imagine that most purchasers of Pixinsight fit this category? Absurd.

A clear explanation need not be in any way patronizing. In fact writing coherently for non specialists is a rewarding skill and one which, like so many others, begins with the will to learn it. As a teacher I found out regularly that, when I couldn't provide a non-technical explanation, the reason was that there was a defect in my own understanding.

Photoshop is a stunningly successful excercise in communication. It is written by mathematicians for artists and craftsmen. Its mathematical operations are presented in user interfaces cleverly analogous with methods predating digital imaging. This is the case because those writing it were not writing it for themselves but for others. Sadly Pixinsight, which should be better than Photoshop and often is, is written by people who have given little thought to communication with anyone with a background different from their own. Pixinsight is an excercise in non-communication.

Olly

[NickK]

High-performance, proprietary expression parser/interpreter. PixelMath expressions are plain text strings in common algebraic notation, following a set of syntax rules very similar to the basic C syntax, with extensions and some new operators adapted to manage 2-D images efficiently.

Yup. I'd agree with Brantuk. Although you've missed the master stroke of PI which is not to explain anything.. or in PI language "an empty set". Sorry I meant {}.

[pete_l]

Explaining things is really quite easy.

1) Identify what the person you're talking to knows already, or assume it is very little.

It's my experience that most people are quite happy to NOT have things explained to them. Mostly people give explanations, not to provide enlightenment and spread knowledge but to show how much cleverer they are than the person they're explaining to. Your manual seems to be a case in point.

There are some topics that I am interested in where explanations are welcome, to further my knowledge & understanding. However mostly I simply don't care about the why's and wherefore's - I just want a recipe: what to do and in what order.

As for poetry: I thought the whole point of it was to make rhymes.

There was a young lady called Jane

Who's astronomical knowledge was lame

Though she looked at the stars

She couldn't tell Mars

From the EasyJet flight down to Spain

[ollypenrice]

I think that a good explanation must refer to underlying principles and not be just a rote recipe for button pressing. When teaching what I know of image processing to our guests I won't just say 'press this button in Photoshop.' I'll discuss what we are tryng to do and how we are trying to do it. I'll talk about large and small scale structures and why they have different needs. I'll discuss dynamic range but I might call that the 'range of brightnesses' if the person isn't from a photographic or graphics background. Then I'll talk about the array of tools at our disposal and reflect on which might be the most appropriate for the next operation.

I think that if you don't do that the other person will have little chance of remembering what you've explained and even less chance of moving into the business of developing techniques of their own. This is what provdes the most fun in image processing and is also what lies behind the fact that amateur imagers are geting better - which they are, at a phenomenal rate.

Now none of this has anything to do with the maths underlying Photoshop. It starts at the level of the tool itself. If a master cabinet maker were teaching an apprentice he or she would discuss the tools to be used, their properties and functions, without getting involved in the metallurgy of the blade or the cultivation of the wood used in the handle. It's like learning to drive. You should know what a clutch does when you let it in but you don't need to know how to dismantle and repair it or how it was engineered. The problem with the explanations in PI is that they leap straight into the maths, often bypassing the level of the tool that has been constructed from the maths. This is not good explanation and it is not respectful of your customers and it does not make you cleverer.

Poetry and rhyme? Well, it doesn't have to rhyme but free verse is a slippery slope. When Robert Frost was asked why, given the meandering way he wrote, he didn't use free verse he said, 'It would be like trying to carry water in a seive.'

There once was a teacher from Stowe

Who was asked why verses should rhyme.

He let out a smile

and said with wink

I think we can say now you know.

(I quite like that! I wish I'd thought of that while teaching English... Too late as usual.)

Olly