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Re: Does Mathematica really need more printed, introductory documentation?
In article <fv6uhs$rk2$1 at smc.vnet.net>,
Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz at mimuw.edu.pl> wrote:
> Is it really "reality based" to be comparing books about Adobe
> Illustrator (all versions going as far back as 2003) with books only
> about version 6 of Mathematica ? Sounds to me more like a reflection
> in a distorting mirror masquerading as "reality" (something
> unfortunately very common these days in the media and in large
> sections of the Academia).
Andrzej, it's Wolfram itself has portrayed version 6
as a massive and major upgrade --- "Wolfram reinvents
Mathematica!" --- "500 major new features" --- "a
revolutionary new version" --- which also involves
significant features of previous versions being
removed, replaced, or changed in major ways.
And of the 12 Illustrator manuals I listed, nine of them have
publication dates in 2007 and are (or at least claim to be)
updated for Illustrator's current versions as of those dates
--- for a product whose upgrades have been, I think it's fair
to say, much more gradual and evolutionary in character
than Mathematica's v5 to v6 upgrade.
I included the three items from 2006, 2005 and 2003 only
for historical interest, since they apparently hadn't --- yet,
anyway --- been updated. I think my amazon search on the
string "Adobe Illustrator" actually brought up something
over 2000 hits (though of course there have nowhere that
many actual earlier books).
Beyond these facts, I think I'll let the remainder of your
comments speak for themselves.
> Why don't you perform a search for books about Mathematica (all
> versions) and compare your findings with your list of books about
> Illustrator? The picture will become very different and much closer to
> "reality". The fact is, that the vast majority of essential features
> of Mathematica are described in these earlier versions and that any
> one who has mastered them should be able to update his knowledge to
> version 6 without a huge extra effort.
>
> As I already expained earlier: I would not buy any printed "manual
> style" book about Mathematica and I remain highly skeptical that such
> a book would be successful enough to justify the effort of writing it.
> However, this only one person's view based on mere speculation.
> However, I am (of course) very interested in any books *applying* the
> new features of Mathematica 6, but that is an entirely different matter.
>
> Andrzej Kozlowski
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