Re: WORKBENCH VS MATHEMATICA
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg110336] Re: WORKBENCH VS MATHEMATICA
- From: Hannes Kessler <HannesKessler at hushmail.com>
- Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2010 18:52:15 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <hv23ru$5eo$1@smc.vnet.net>
On 13 Jun., 10:11, "J and B" <noslow... at comcast.net> wrote: > In writing code which is the preferred method, Work Bench or Mathematica? > > In ether one, why do you use it vs. the other? I use both. For smaller programs, I prefer Mathematica. For larger packages (stored in $UserBaseDirectory/Applications and loaded with Needs), I am in the transition to the Workbench. One advantage of the Workbench is, that it allows to work on or more new packages without mixing them with the finished packages ready for use in $UserBaseDirectory/Applications. Only when a package under development has reached a functional state, I copy it from its Workbench project directory to $UserBaseDirectory/Applications. Another advantage of the Workbench is that you can add help documents to your packages which can be viewed in the Mathematica documentation center. One can also use the Workbench debugger if the code is developed in .m files (not in .nb files). I did not use this feature until now as I still prefer to maintain my packages via .nb files: Write a package in a notebook .nb file, mark the code cells as initialization cells or convert them to the Code-style - this creates automatically your package .m file on each save of the corresponding notebook .nb file. Workbench has a number of deficiencies and bugs. It may crash or issue a lot of not helpful error messages if you do not follow exactly the standard examples. There are many options which can be changed, but the help documentation does not explain the effects for ordinary users. When you create help pages and compile them, you have to restart the Workbench each time before you can see the changes in the Mathematica documentation center. The links to other help pages created by the DocumentationTools palette are incorrect if you have a non-English Windows (in my case a german Windows), an english Mathematica and compile english help pages. I've got a confirmation regarding the last 2 bugs by the support of Wolfram Research without any workarounds. It seems to me that the Workbench may become a great programming environment for Mathematica programs in the future. At the moment it offers some possibilities but was also a source of big frustration for me. You do not need to know the Workbench in order to write good Mathematica programs efficiently. My recommendation for a beginning Mathematica programmer would be to start writing programs in the standard Mathematica environment. You can use all the formatting features and styles in .nb notebooks in order to comment your programs and their testing procedures. In addition, you can use the very good Mathematica-editor for .m package files. There are real Mathematica experts who do all their work - code writing, debugging and compiling help files - in the standard Mathematica environment. It's just a question of your personal preferences. Best regards, Hannes Kessler