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Re: Re: Where is the Mathematica Book in Documentation

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg76094] Re: [mg76046] Re: [mg75987] Where is the Mathematica Book in Documentation
  • From: Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu>
  • Date: Wed, 16 May 2007 05:28:23 -0400 (EDT)
  • Organization: Mathematics & Statistics, Univ. of Mass./Amherst
  • References: <30170403.1179134292863.JavaMail.root@m35> <200705150857.EAA17036@smc.vnet.net>
  • Reply-to: murray at math.umass.edu

But that's the book for Mathematica 5.2.  While a new user could still 
learn a lot from it and, if using the printed form, get physical 
exercise as well, one could quickly run into confusion if using 6.0.

DrMajorBob wrote:
> The Mathematica Book is online at
> 
> http://documents.wolfram.com/mathematica/book/
> 
> Bobby
> 
> On Mon, 14 May 2007 02:49:32 -0500, Mark Adler <madler at alumni.caltech.edu>  
> wrote:
> 
>> The old help function was actually helpful.
>>
>> Aside from the fact that I now need to know how to spell in order to
>> get help from the "Documentation Center", I can't find the good stuff
>> that used to be there.  (Apparently you can use asterisk as a wild
>> card to help a little with the spelling thing.)
>>
>> Most notably the Mathematica Book is missing in action.  I used to be
>> able to simply read the book, chapter and verse, find references to
>> functions in several places in the book, and use the book's index.
>>
>> Now I can't find any of that.
>>
>> Also when I look at functions that are in packages, there is no
>> information or examples about how to load or depend on the package.
>> All I want to see is the relevant Get or Needs expression to be able
>> to use the function.
>>
>> The information on functions now seems rather terse, with no real
>> explanations or decent examples.  (Yes, I click on all the things I
>> can click on to see what's there.)
>>
>> Another funny thing is that even though the Documentation Center
>> doesn't try to complete what you're typing like the old Help did,
>> typing in Documentation Center is monumentally slow!  I can type much
>> faster than the text displays in the window.  I then watch it fill in
>> what I typed.  What's with that?
>>
>> Overall, this seems like a horrible downgrade from the Help in 5.2.
>>
>> Mark Adler
>>
>>
>>
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Murray Eisenberg                     murray at math.umass.edu
Mathematics & Statistics Dept.
Lederle Graduate Research Tower      phone 413 549-1020 (H)
University of Massachusetts                413 545-2859 (W)
710 North Pleasant Street            fax   413 545-1801
Amherst, MA 01003-9305


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