Re: Fonts, Formats, and examples as learning tools
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg113702] Re: Fonts, Formats, and examples as learning tools
- From: Daniel Lichtblau <danl at wolfram.com>
- Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2010 03:39:34 -0500 (EST)
----- Original Message ----- > From: "AES" <siegman at stanford.edu> > To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net > Sent: Sunday, November 7, 2010 4:12:55 AM > Subject: Re: Fonts, Formats, and examples as learning tools > In article <ib390l$f56$1 at smc.vnet.net>, > Murray Eisenberg <murray at math.umass.edu> wrote: > > > I believe one of the factors involved here is that TableForm is an > > older > > function, and that Row and Column (and, more generally, Grid) > > appeared > > only in more recent Mathematica versions -- although in some form > > they > > clearly had to be working behind the scenes before. > > Good point! -- I never even thought about including Grid in my > explorations. > > Obviously lots of opportunities here for my often cited (and far from > mythical) "ordinary users" to run into lots of classic Mathematica > "gotchas" in this whole programming infrastucture. > > One more instance where there could, and should, be a warning pointer, > pointing to a unified, detailed, but ordinary user oriented tutorial > maybe with a title like > > "Lists, Tables, Grids, Rows, and Columns" > > with this pointer located just below the initial definition in the > Help > documents for every single command that contains any of the above > strings. I've not yet fathomed what might be a "gotcha" in this thread. But no matter. Your ordinary user will observe a See Also section in the Documentation Center entries, that leads from one of these constructs to several others. Just below the See Also is a set of Tutorials. Example: from the page for Grid one finds, for example, a link called "Grids, Rows, and Columns in Mathematica", taking one to tutorial/GridsRowsAndColumnsOverview There are other relevant items there as well. For example, under the next heading, More About, one finds "Grids & Tables" and "Layout & Tables" (and several other items of relevance). I notice similar links in the Documentation Center entries for Row and Column. I have to wonder whether your ordinary user is simply not checking the documentation. I cannot believe that that simple task is only for the extraordinary. Daniel Lichtblau Wolfram Research