Re: More trouble with Mathematica documentation
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg38017] Re: More trouble with Mathematica documentation
- From: Jens-Peer Kuska <kuska at informatik.uni-leipzig.de>
- Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2002 00:48:40 -0500 (EST)
- Organization: Universitaet Leipzig
- References: <arsiji$ee6$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Reply-to: kuska at informatik.uni-leipzig.de
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Hi,
>
> What this example shows is that the description
>
> "Graphics[primatives,options] represents ..."
>
> is inconsistent. The first written argument "primatives" must be an actual
> single argument. If you want to submit several graphics primatives, you must
> combine them into a List.
If there are multiple elemts allowed the documentation would write
Graphics[primitive1,primitive2,...,options]
as to see in the documetation for Union[]
>
> On the other hand, the second written argument may be multiple actual
> arguments, or may be a List.
>
> The documentation is inconsistent.
>
> I see no explanation of this any part of the Appendix. And it's particularly
> disappointing because systems were able to document these sorts of things
> decades ago.
>
> Sorting this kind of thing out takes hours. Every time I do something slightly
> new with Mathematica, I find I spend a lot of time because of sloppy
> documentation.
Hmm, sloppy documentation ? realy ? My Windows XP came with a 12 pages
booklet
*that* is a sloppy documentation ! The book should be splitted into
3 or 4 parts and it is to heavy to read it in a bathtub but it is
not sloppy.
>
> I'd really like to hear Mathematica personnel report on (1) Do they agree there
> is an error here, and (2) When do they expect to have corrections available.
>
> And by the way: another thing that needs to be corrected in the documentation
> of Graphics is how graphics directives get used . The header line is:
>
> Graphics[primatives,options]
>
> Unfortunately, a graphics directive is neither a primative or an option. And
> sure enough, when we read a little farther on, we see "The following graphics
> primatives can be used" This is vague. Used how? Remember that the appendix
> is the "Definitive summary" which gives "all details". (From the beginning of
> the Appendix.)
>
> (The fact that the body can say nothing better than the vague statement that
> directives "can be used" is of course a result of the fact that the form
> Graphics[primatives,options] does not allow directives.)
There is a much harder inconsistence in Mathematicas Graphic[], the
graphics directives should be options to the primitives and not
standalone
functions, i.e.,
Line[{{0,0},{1,1}}, Color->RGBColor[1,0,0]]
instead of
{RGBColor[1,0,0],Line[{{0,0},{1,1}}]}
May be that you save a lot of time when you read
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0387940472/qid=1038213121/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-6128995-6365638
and
http://www.math.ubc.ca/people/faculty/cass/graphics/text/www/index.html
Regards
Jens