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Yet another Mathematica docs whopper

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg47079] Yet another Mathematica docs whopper
  • From: J Krugman <jkrugman at yahbitoo.com>
  • Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 05:48:07 -0500 (EST)
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

I've posted about the poor quality of Mathematica's documentation
before, and received several e-mails challenging my claim that this
documentation is awash in errors and woefully incomplete.  Well,
for those who doubt, here's the latest example I just bumped into:

  In[1]:= ??AspectRatio
  AspectRatio is an option for Show and related functions which specifies the
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     ratio of height to width for a plot.

  Attributes[AspectRatio] = {Protected}

  In[2]:= SetOptions[Show, AspectRatio->Automatic];

  SetOptions::optnf: AspectRatio is not a known option for Show.
                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Faced with this sort of nonsense, what is a user to do?

I am furious, because I spend an unreasonable amount of time
resolving inadequacies like this one in the Mathematica documentation.
Considering the exorbitant sum we paid for Mathematica, I expect
something much better documented than this.

jill

-- 
To  s&e^n]d  me  m~a}i]l  r%e*m?o\v[e  bit from my a|d)d:r{e:s]s.


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