Re: Re: Re: When is a List not a List?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg91000] Re: [mg90973] Re: [mg90956] Re: [mg90947] When is a List not a List?
- From: Peter Lindsay <peter.lindsay at mac.com>
- Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 03:27:59 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <200807310656.CAA07700@smc.vnet.net>
just a crazy off-the-top-of-my-head idea here: Why don't Wolfram publish a manual for Mathematica ? Peter Lindsay On 1 Aug 2008, at 08:00, AES wrote: > At 7:44 PM -0500 7/31/08, DrMajorBob wrote: >> Plot COULD assign colors after evaluation, OTOH... the fact that it >> doesn't is a design choice/artifact, not a necessity preordained by >> fate. >> >> That being so, users are entitled to find it odd at first glance. >> (Or even second... maybe third.) > > If the above is true -- and I'd suppose it is -- then I'd say it's > also very much an unfortunate, not to say flat-out *bad* design > choice or artifact. > > An innocent novice-level user creates a Plot[ ] with three curves > using the {f1, f2, f3} List form of the first argument, and discovers > that M by default assigns a different color to each curve -- a good > and helpful default design choice on M's part, I'd say. > > Maybe this novice user wants to go a bit further: Thicken certain > curves, change the Dashing, and so on. He or she discovers the > PlotStyle option (or equivalent); learns how to do this; is happy. > > And then this user also realizes: Hey, I could plot 8 or 10 curves > this way, without having to type in f1 thru f8 by just using a Table[ > ] command for the first argument and iterating over some appropriate > parameter. A Table[ ] creates a List, right? > > So he/she does this; the 8 or 10 curves appear exactly as desired; > except the styling behavior is suddenly all screwed up. Once again, > a classic M-style Gotcha!!! -- and a particularly nasty Gotcha: Am I > getting this unwanted result because of the way I structured the > PlotStyle commands I used? -- or because of something mysterious with > using Table[ ]? The coloring and so on in the default {f1, f2, f3} > case has the nice default cycling behavior for the styling -- Why am > I not getting it now? > > Andrzej says this unfortunate result _has_ to be the case because > Plot[ ] doesn't "pre-Evaluate" the first argument. > > Well, somehow, if the first argument is {f1, f2, f3, f4, f5, f6, f7, > f8}, Plot[ ] somehow "pre-evaluates" (lower-case pre-evaluate) this > argument at least enough to know that it's not only a List, but how > many elements that List has. Is it somehow impossible for Plot[ ] to > know that Table will also produce a List, and to similarly > pre-evaluate how many elements that List will have? I suspect it's > not impossible. > > And if that is indeed impossible with the PlotStyle option in Plot[ ] > then can Andrzej explain how it _is _ possible for Plot[ ] to > somehow handle the PlotRange->All option correctly (i.e., > identically) with either form of the first argument -- even though > that option needs to determine not only the number of curves in the > first argument, but the maximum and minimum values over all those > curves, in order to set the axes and axis Tick locations and values > for the plot. Is just getting the number of curves and picking the > colors for them really harder than that? > > I very much like DrMajorBob's wording here: I'll bet the coloring > problem with List vs Table is precisely "an [accidental] design > choice/artifact, not a necessity preordained by fate" -- and an > unfortunately unfortunate "design choice/artifact". > > The only things more unfortunate are (a) that M has a fair (and > increasing?) number of these Gotchas; (b) M's documentation is > substantially less helpful than it could or should be either in > diagnosing or in warning about them; and (c) it's far from clear that > anyone at WRI really recognizes these points. > > > >