Re: Re: Re: Re: condense axis
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg103361] Re: [mg103343] Re: [mg103323] Re: [mg103299] Re: condense axis
- From: DrMajorBob <btreat1 at austin.rr.com>
- Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:21:11 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <23668144.1252713896870.JavaMail.root@n11>
- Reply-to: drmajorbob at yahoo.com
I'd need 5,000 hours to reproduce the Presentations package... and I wouldn't do it as well as David has done. His examples alone... without the code... are worth the price. It would be a BRILLIANT addition to standard Mathematica, if WRI could only recognize it. Bobby On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:47:49 -0500, David Park <djmpark at comcast.net> wrote: > 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. >> > > > > -- DrMajorBob at yahoo.com