Overview

This represents a draft proposal for ways we could improve the handling of data types, especially with students coming from a background in interpreted languages in mind.

This expands and improves upon the changes from #29.

Discussion

With the addition of explicit instruction about data types, it becomes reasonable to remove the comments about data types from the actual "Data Format" specification.

This edition provides examples, discussion about sizing consideration, and links to official documentation to help illuminate the importance of attention to data types in general.

This edition still clearly provides the answer about which data type to use along with a discussion about pros and cons of different definitions of the data type. I feel this is reasonable since this "Scientific Computing" is not designed to test student's knowledge of data types, although learning more about them along the way is a plus.

Anticipated Requests

The reviewers may want to suggest or contribute the following adjustments before completing this PR:

• Moving this content to a "reading" page where it may be more appropriate
• Removing the explicit declaration of the exact data type needed in favor of additional context to equip students to make the decision themselves
• Adjusting the verbiage or formatting of the material

Reviewers

@paigeid-orc What do you think about this?