Re: Clever Tricky Solutions
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg94320] Re: Clever Tricky Solutions
- From: Helen Read <read at math.uvm.edu>
- Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 04:48:26 -0500 (EST)
- References: <27271771.1228394784179.JavaMail.root@m02> <ghavpg$o9j$1@smc.vnet.net> <ghg9c3$hos$1@smc.vnet.net> <33504871.1228737463217.JavaMail.root@m02> <ghlmld$kml$1@smc.vnet.net>
David Park wrote: > Helen, > > With the Presentations package the Draw2D and Draw3DItems statements DO have > the built-in option PlotRange -> Automatic. And users can very easily > combine graphics primitives from different plot types and mix them with > their own primitives and directives. > > So, my question is: How much time have you and your students actually spent > on this problem? How much time *should* we spend on it? These are beginning calculus students / Mathematica newbies. They can cope with it by always setting PlotRange->Automatic when they use Show, if they remember to do it. It is a nuisance, though, and I wish we had the old behavior of Show, or even a simple way to restore that behavior with a SetOptions. As for the Presentations package, it is not practical for us to use add-ons. The students use Mathematica on University-owned computers all over campus as well on their own laptops. If we installed packages in the two classrooms where I teach, it would only create confusion when the students use Mathematica somewhere else and things are missing or behave differently. It was difficult enough dealing with the standard packages pre-V6 (for example, we used to have load a package to use PolarPlot); the students tended not to distinguish between built-in functions and add-ons, and often forgot to load a package until it was too late...that old Shadow problem. (It is so much better now that in V6+ we almost never have to use packages for anything we would do in class.) If we used a package from an outside source, it would be a living nightmare. -- Helen Read University of Vermont