RE: Re: bug in IntegerPart ?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg47948] RE: [mg47907] Re: bug in IntegerPart ?
- From: "DrBob" <drbob at bigfoot.com>
- Date: Sun, 2 May 2004 04:50:43 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
I was wrong about the particular expression mentioned; there's a lexical syntax involved, not a function 2^^#& applied to the output of BaseForm. When you say this, however: >>But this phrase could also be taken to mean "does not affect evaluation of arguments" which is correct. NO function affects evaluation of its arguments, or if one did, what would that look like? Does Exp affect the evaluation of its argument, if I write Exp[1/x]? No, 1/x evaluates the usual way. (OK, N may be an exception.) Yes, the author probably had something in mind that IS true; but what he wrote isn't true, and that's been pointed out before. Many times. So far as I know, EVERYWHERE the wrapper concept is mentioned in the documentation, it's incorrect. Or, if it is correct in some unknown sense, it's a simple matter to link those references to an explanation. Many of us are doing WRI's training, consulting, and debugging for them, negating the value of our work by giving it away for free; the least WRI can do is respond when we point out confusion in the documentation. DrBob www.eclecticdreams.net -----Original Message----- From: Bill Rowe [mailto:readnewsciv at earthlink.net] To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net Subject: [mg47948] [mg47907] Re: bug in IntegerPart ? On 4/29/04 at 12:34 AM, drbob at bigfoot.com (DrBob) wrote: >2^^BaseForm[0.35`, 2] WOULD be a legitimate expression, if Help >were correct in saying that BaseForm is a wrapper, affecting >printing but not evaluation. I would argue the documentation is ambiguous in this case and could be made clearer but isn't necessarily incorrect. The phrase "which affects printing, but not evaluation" could be taken to mean "does not affect subsequent evaluation" which is clearly not correct. But this phrase could also be taken to mean "does not affect evaluation of arguments" which is correct. In general, I think this particular issue has more to do with the problems of written communication and human nature then Mathematica. Words have different meaning depending on context. A writer clearly has some context in mind. The context is significantly limited when only a single sentance is present. Human nature is such that it is difficult to realize a written passage can be interpreted much differently by a reader who will be completely unaware of the context the writer had in mind when the passage was written. -- To reply via email subtract one hundred and four