Re: new functional operator
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg125605] Re: new functional operator
- From: John Doty <noqsiaerospace at gmail.com>
- Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 05:45:48 -0500 (EST)
- Delivered-to: l-mathgroup@mail-archive0.wolfram.com
- References: <jjfd6e$7u7$1@smc.vnet.net> <jjpakk$ov1$1@smc.vnet.net>
On Tuesday, March 20, 2012 1:19:23 AM UTC-6, roby wrote:
> > That creates a information fog that makes *all* Mathematica code harder to understand, and Mathematica much harder to learn than it used to be.
>
> {1, 2, 3, 4} /// f///g
>
>
> > {1, 2, 3, 4} // f /@ # & // g /@ # &
>
> sorry but I absolutly can't agree with your opinion in this case, the
> former expression is more or less fogless and would be much easier to
> understand.
> The latter expression bears a lot of clutter.
>
> Robert
It isn't clutter in any specific piece of code that's the problem: it's all the cluttered documentation. Many of us appreciated the wonderful Mathematica book when it existed, but Mathematica has too many unnecessary functions these days, so a book is impractical. A vast fog of hypertext isn't as easy to navigate as a book. For functions like the one we're discussing, it's much better to define it only when needed. Then, those trying to understand code that *doesn't* use that function (almost all Mathematica code ever written) won't have to waste time looking past it in the documentation.