Re: Re: Re: condense axis
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg103343] Re: [mg103323] Re: [mg103299] Re: condense axis
- From: "David Park" <djmpark at comcast.net>
- Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:47:49 -0400 (EDT)
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I wasn't the other correspondent but certainly it is not out of bounds to criticize buying a package if one can program it yourself. A lot of people feel that way. There is nothing in Presentations that one couldn't program for oneself. The question is whether it is time efficient. (And, of course, the package tackles many more problems than the broken-axis problem.) I seriously question whether a reasonably competent Mathematica user could program and test the ySplitPlot routine in 10 minutes. It has a lot tricky little things in it like using AbsoluteOptions, understanding the tick data format, chopping and shifting and using Sequence. Also it is not as general as seems to be claimed. The splitlines appear to be geared to a specific plot scale and would probably have to be modified in other cases. It is not a simple tweak to change it to accommodate different scales for the two functions - because it is modifying a single set of linear scale ticks. Then there is the matter of demanding an "exact" solution. We don't know what an exact solution is because the original poster only asked a generic question. We don't know what his functions look like, whether he wants different scales or whether he might demand an actual break in the y axis and not just a couple of cross lines. In any case, I did in fact produce two solutions using the existing Presentations. When I decided we should have nice YAxisBreak and XAxisBreak graphics routines that a user could use to plug the gap between two tick lines it took me several hours to program so they would be convenient to use. Then it took me another hour to plug them into Presentations with Workbench and write links and documentation Function pages. The buyer of the package has them handy, gets usage messages and SyntaxInformation and documentation pages with notes, examples and links to associated routines. And that is just a small addition to what is in the package. If a user programs these routines himself (especially in 10 minutes), where is he going to put them? Will he write all the documentation? Will he find it a year from now and remember how it works? Is this just a one-off thing? Will he be able to search MathGroup and find ySplitPlot? Mathematica is somewhat torn between two approaches. One approach might be called the "toolkit" approach. Mathematica provides the tools and it is up to the user to put them together for a solution. And Mathematica does provide plenty of tools. The other approach is what I call the "set-piece" approach. Mathematica provides a set-piece routine that is very powerful, impressive and does some commonly useful thing. Examples might be Plot3D or Manipulate. The set-piece routines are great and usually adaptable, but the more you try to stretch them the more difficult they become and finally they may peter out. One sees many questions on MathGroup from people trying to go beyond the set-piece routines and having great difficulty. The toolkit approach may generally involve more work (because it doesn't make a lot of automatic choices for you) but it is more intuitive work and for most custom graphics it is less work than trying to outfox a set-piece routine. And, in general, it is a matter of development and investigation as to the best methods to present mathematical and technical ideas using all the facilities that Mathematica provides. We don't know the best methods and that is why I believe a toolkit approach is the best approach. The Presentations package is very much oriented to providing convenient tools for building up custom presentations of ideas. As to a $50 cost for a Mathematica package, I have read that good, non Ivy League, private colleges cost more than $50,000 per year. Assuming that a student only attends 3/4 of the year, 6 days a week, with 10 hours a day in actual school work, that comes out to $21/hour that the student is paying for the privilege of learning within an academic environment. I have to save him 2 1/2 hours over a year in learning the same material to justify the package. David Park djmpark at comcast.net http://home.comcast.net/~djmpark/ From: Peter Falloon [mailto:pfalloon at gmail.com] Check out SpheroidalPS, SpheroidalEigenvalue and related... (For the record, the package was -- and still is -- *freely* available at http://ftp.physics.uwa.edu.au/pub/Theses/2002/Falloon/ ) It seems I've ruffled a few feathers, so let me repeat what I just wrote offline to another correspondent: "I apologize if I've caused offence here: let me be clear that I'm not trying to impugn the package itself. All I'm saying is that if it doesn't address the specific question, it seems a little cynical to go recommending it? It would be a different story if a specific implementation using the package was demonstrated, and a good argument given as to why this was easier than, or superior to, what could be achieved in Mathematica alone. If that's the case, why not do it (my implementation took only about 10 minutes to whip up and is reasonably workable)?" Cheers, Peter. On 15 Sep 2009, at 05:52, Syd Geraghty wrote: > Hi Peter, > > I cannot imagine a package that does everything you want for any > amount of dollars (even Australian dollars). :-) > > The Presentations Package addresses a great many issues of > exposition and graphical output and of course split axis graphs are > a minor issue. > > I believe most of us who use the Presentations Package think it a > great value and wish WRI would incorporate David Park's work in the > standard distribution of Mathematica. > > Some of us have lobbied for that to happen directly with WRI > marketing folks and I hope that more Presentations users will add > their support to that effort. > > This is not an easy process as it appears you have experienced. > > In The Mathematica Journal Volume 10, Issue 3, 2007 I recently came > across your article: > > A Mode-Matching Method for Multichannel Scattering Problems by Peter > Falloon. > > As a sidebar it was mentioned that: > > " Falloon developed a Mathematica package to compute spheroidal > wavefunctions, which will be incorporated into the next version of > the Mathematica system. " > > I have not been able to find any references yet in V7. Que pasa? > > Cheers ... Syd > > > > > > Syd Geraghty B.Sc, M.Sc. > > sydgeraghty at mac.com > > Mathematica 7.0.1 for Mac OS X x86 (64 - bit) (18th February 2009) > MacOS X V 10.6 Snow LeopardMacBook Pro 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo > 2GB RAM > > > > > On Sep 14, 2009, at 4:10 AM, pfalloon wrote: > >> Hi David, >> Well, with all due respect, I wouldn't recommend paying $50 for a >> package unless it could do *exactly* what you needed. >
- References:
- Re: condense axis
- From: pfalloon <pfalloon@gmail.com>
- Re: condense axis