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Re: Yet another Mathematica docs whopper

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg47106] Re: [mg47079] Yet another Mathematica docs whopper
  • From: Yasvir Tesiram <yat at omrf.ouhsc.edu>
  • Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 03:55:49 -0500 (EST)
  • References: <200403251048.FAA09844@smc.vnet.net>
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Yes, it should really read,

.......AspectRatio is an option for Graphics

Options[Show] will return an empty list. In which case a little 
deduction that Show relates to Graphics would have eventually lead you 
to type in Options[Graphics]. I understand it can be infuriating 
sometimes. But of course there must be a balance between how much 
appears in a manual. Being concise is often mistaken for incomplete 
yada yada yada...

Something such as this is probably best sent to Wolfram. One thing they 
do do well is respond, and having paid a large amount of money you are 
entitled to use their service.

Cheerful regards
Yas

On Mar 25, 2004, at 4:48 AM, J Krugman wrote:

> 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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