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Re: annoying documentation in 6 (rant)

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg79875] Re: annoying documentation in 6 (rant)
  • From: j.f.b.payne at tesco.net
  • Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2007 01:37:04 -0400 (EDT)
  • References: <f77j9r$c9p$1@smc.vnet.net>

Hello,

On 18 Jul, 08:00, AES <sieg... at stanford.edu> wrote:
> In article <f7hrqb$s2... at smc.vnet.net>,
>  David Bailey <dave at Remove_Thisdbailey.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Seriously, though, without a book for 6.0, the help topics
> > absolutely must be authoritative and complete.
>
> I think all of us who've posted earlier on this topic would fully agree
> with you that for something as complex, massive, and extensively changed
> as 6.0, the Help system absolutely must be "authoritative and complete"  
> **with or without a book**.

I wish the Help was authoritative and complete, but maybe that is a
bit like wishing there were no bugs in Mathematica.
I wonder if it is worth noting mistakes in the Help on this newsgroup?
Technical support don't seem to volunteer to ensure documentation
updates are done, in my experience.

Today's Help errors (v6.0.1) were

Help says
ListPointPlot3D returns Graphics3D[GraphicsComplex[data]].

However

Shallow[FullForm[
  ListPointPlot3D[{{0, 0, 0}, {1, 1, 1}, {0, 0, 1}}] ] ]

produces

Graphics3D[ListSkeleton[1]], List[Skeleton[4]]]

(i.e. no GraphicsComplex)

Also, Help says
Point[{Subscript[coords, 1],Subscript[coords, 2],\[Ellipsis]}]
represents a collection of points.
which is not shown as a change in version 6.  But, of course it _is_ a
change (you can use a list of coordinates of points as an argument to
Point).  And (I find) it is 3 or 4 times faster to use the changed
version.

John Payne



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