Re: Does Mathematica really need more printed, introductory
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg88706] Re: Does Mathematica really need more printed, introductory
- From: "ahallam at iastate.edu" <ahallam at iastate.edu>
- Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 07:10:19 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <fuhfdc$ihb$1@smc.vnet.net> <fuhrka$s88$1@smc.vnet.net>
On Apr 30, 3:27 am, AES <sieg... at stanford.edu> wrote: > In article <fv6uhs$rk... at smc.vnet.net>, > Andrzej Kozlowski <a... 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 For what it's worth, the following book was written using Mathematica 6 and uses Mathematica 6 examples. Dynamical Systems with Applications using Mathematica It is available at Amazon.