Re: Exporting data into a file, OpenWrite
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg96747] Re: Exporting data into a file, OpenWrite
- From: AES <siegman at stanford.edu>
- Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 05:04:34 -0500 (EST)
- Organization: Stanford University
- References: <gnq6s2$87n$1@smc.vnet.net>
In article <gnq6s2$87n$1 at smc.vnet.net>, Bill Rowe <readnews at sbcglobal.net> wrote: > > When you use Export, the file will be created in the current > working directory. That is the directory that is returned by Directory[] > Bill, When you included this very sensible and helpful paragraph in the overall very helpful reply you gave to the OP on this thread, I suggest you also inadvertently touched on one of the, in my view, classic examples of Wolfram's inadequate approach to documentation for Mathematica. Export[] is a command which can be viewed as a kind of "shipping label" or set of instructions for shipping data to somewhere, akin to the warehouse shipping labels one finds inside incoming amazon.com shipments, or the FedEx shipping labels I occasionally prepare online for outgoing shipments. As such the Export[] command specifically spells out what's to be shipped; what name (i.e., what product identification) is to be put on the package; and, in detail, how it's to be wrapped and packaged (i.e., the format). But after all this, the Export[] command itself says nothing -- gives no information at all -- about the equally crucial matter of _where_ this package is to be sent! And worse, if you go to the Help message for Export[] (up through v6, at least), and expand this message out to the fullest, it also gives _no_ information about this. If a slightly expanded version of your paragraph above had been included in the Export[] Help file, for example in the "More Information" section, it would have told the OP where his data would be sent to (which you'll note was actually the key question in his opening sentence). But more than this, this simple addition to the Export[] documentation could gently help educate novice Export[] users to the concept of a "directory" and of Directory[] type commands -- right at a time when they need this education, and are ready to absorb it. Is this less than optimum result for the Export[] help command just one particularly unfortunate example, that leaps out from the page? -- or a classic illustration of a general weakness in Wolfram's approach to user documentation? It's certainly the former -- my view is, it's also very much the latter. --AES