Is there any other field of endeavor where a phrase like
"""
Like all of my examples it's one of those super-simple examples; small 
enough to be unreal, but hopefully enough for you to visualize what's going 
on without falling into the bog of a real example.
"""
is common?  Where people teach principles with overly-simplified and 
unrealistic bits because doing it for real is too obscure?

I mean, it's like saying "here we have Literature 101 class, where we don't 
read actual books, but just abstracts, because the real books are too long." 
Or "here we're going to look at line drawings of injuries, because looking 
at real injuries is too complicated for teaching medicine."

Maybe grade-school science works that way? But that isn't really teaching 
science as much as it's teaching results, IME.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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