Re: RE: Re: Mathematica Documentation
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg38280] Re: [mg38216] RE: [mg38160] Re: Mathematica Documentation
- From: George Woodrow III <georgevw3 at mac.com>
- Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 04:17:38 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
I wish all software had the same level and quality of documentation that Mathematica does. The stuff that Microsoft includes for the Office apps is a joke -- especially considering what the documentation for the older versions used to be. Mathematica is the only major program I know where the amount of documentation increases with each new version. More than many technical programs, Mathematica has a different 'mindset', which can take some getting used to, especially if your mind works differently. Whenever I get a new version of Mathematica, I always read the entire book -- even the parts that I do not understand. I find that this makes tasks like guessing the correct thing to type in the help system much easier. George On Thursday, December 5, 2002, at 03:31 am, David Park wrote: > Dave, > > I disagree. I think that Mathematica has very good documentation and > that is > one of its strong points. All of the principal commands have > individual Help > pages and also their individual usage messages. It is easy to get to > them. > The book index and master index are very long. > > One of the best features is that the user can write his own > documentation > for his own packages and completely integrate it with the standard > documentation. > > Yes, the documentation is not completely perfect - but this is a > massive > piece of software. As with any program it does take new users a little > while > to find their way around. > > My experience is that Mathematica has the best documentation of any > program > I have used (mainly things like Word and Excel). > > David Park > djmp at earthlink.net > http://home.earthlink.net/~djmp/ > > From: DGolber [mailto:dgolber at aol.com] To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net > To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net > >> >>> Have an entry under "Graphics Primitives" >>> Have an entry under "Primitives" >>> Have an entry under "Graphics Directives" >>> Have an entry under "Directives" >> >> ............ >> >> Dave, >> >> I almost always use the on line Help Browser >> >> Set the category to Master Index and these are found. >> >> The first three are in the printed book's index, >> >> -- >> Allan >> > I type "primitives" in the Master Index and get section 2.9.1, which > does > not > have a list of all the primitives. Yes, of course I found it sooner or > later. > But that's not a good index. > > All I can say is that, when someone asks me about Mathematica, I'll > say it > is > hard to use for many reasons, and one of them is the poor > documentation. > > Dave Golber > >