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Re: Hardcopy or electronic books?

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg62657] Re: Hardcopy or electronic books?
• From: Paul Abbott <paul at physics.uwa.edu.au>
• Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 00:08:00 -0500 (EST)
• Organization: The University of Western Australia
• References: <200511191054.FAA16499@smc.vnet.net> <dlp2i9$r0$1@smc.vnet.net> <dlph6b$4ff$1@smc.vnet.net>
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

In article <dlph6b$4ff$1 at smc.vnet.net>,
 "Steven T. Hatton" <hattons at globalsymmetry.com> wrote:

> The Mathematica Book /is/ available in the HelpBrowser, and Mathematica
> certainly comes with a lot of pedagogical material.  I will observe that
> one mistake I made early on when learning Mathematica was to read too much
> into the "thou shall not reverse engineer" part of the license agreement. 
> I took that to mean 'don't read the code in the packages'.  

This comment suprised me. I always assumed that reverse engineering 
would (and could) only apply to kernel functionality. I wonder if others 
felt the same way ...

> That was certainly a mistake.  There is a wealth of material in the files 
> composing the packages, and I have neglected that as a resource.

Indeed. The copyright of each package is WRI's but I've always advised 
people learning Mathematica to read the code in the packages.
 
> I very much like having both the electronic form of a book, and hardcopy.  I
> spend a lot of time flipping through pages taking mental "snapshots" of
> parts I have not yet read.  For some reason, I have a better sense of where
> I am in a book when I hold it in my hand.

Agreed.

Cheers,
Paul

_______________________________________________________________________
Paul Abbott                                      Phone:  61 8 6488 2734
School of Physics, M013                            Fax: +61 8 6488 1014
The University of Western Australia         (CRICOS Provider No 00126G)    
AUSTRALIA                               http://physics.uwa.edu.au/~paul

• References:
  • Hardcopy or electronic books?
    • From: "Steven T. Hatton" <hattons@globalsymmetry.com>