What should Mma be
- To: mathgroup at yoda.physics.unc.edu
- Subject: What should Mma be
- From: Pekka.Janhunen at fmi.fi
- Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 12:45:34 -0800
Hello mathgroup, Yet another opinion on the subject ... I see no reason why WRI should not also develop the presentation capabilities. Warren J. Wiscombe expressed his concerns about Mma becoming a 'Symphony of the 90s'. But we must think that the Mma kernel plays the role of an operating system like Unix, not an application. The 'applications' are individual Mma functions, whether in the kernel or written in Mma itself. In this sense, Mma already automatically obeys the small-tool philosophy of Kernighan et al. Keeping the system of modest size is only a practical issue, and I think that as WRI anyway has a number of people involved in developing Mma, both presentation and the algorithmics can (and must) be improved at the same time. For example, as pointed out by many, there is a real and everyday need for the production of Greek symbols and super/subscripts in plot/axis labels etc. These should be properly implemented as soon as possible. Pekka Janhunen