Re: Mathematica frustrations...
- To: mathgroup@smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg11246] Re: Mathematica frustrations...
- From: Paul Abbott <paul@physics.uwa.edu.au>
- Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 01:39:10 -0500
- Organization: University of Western Australia
- References: <6cgf9k$sd7@smc.vnet.net> <6d0ah6$2jt@smc.vnet.net>
Carlos A. Felippa wrote: > The use of % is a legacy from the original In-Out days of interactive > command languages like Basic or Unix. It makes no sense for a Notebook > front end. A Notebook with sensible application of % (and sometimes %% or %%%) can be used very profitably as a type of fancy spreadsheet. Also, this is often easier to follow (and construct) than a set of procedures. > Notebooks are best organized in a procedural style, as > collections of modules. This is certainly a matter of opinion. I use Modules when they are required. > What is still lacking in Mathematica is the > ability to compile modules and complete cells to machine language and > to form a relocatable object library that can be loaded and executed at > high speed. This will have to wait until (1) a typing system is > introduced, and (2) all module symbols are made local by default and > placed in dynamic stacks. Agreed -- but have you used DumpSave in 3.0? It goes some way towards this. > In fact it might be useful to get rid altogether of the In[ ] and Out[ ] > that still clutter cell boundaries since the numbers that appear > therein serve no useful purpose. But you can switch off In[ ] and Out[ ] (under the Kernel menu). Cheers, Paul ____________________________________________________________________ Paul Abbott Phone: +61-8-9380-2734 Department of Physics Fax: +61-8-9380-1014 The University of Western Australia Nedlands WA 6907 mailto:paul@physics.uwa.edu.au AUSTRALIA http://www.pd.uwa.edu.au/~paul God IS a weakly left-handed dice player ____________________________________________________________________