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Re: Newly Released Mathematica 5.1 Delivers Unmatched Performance for Handling Data

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg52302] Re: Newly Released Mathematica 5.1 Delivers Unmatched Performance for Handling Data
  • From: Steve Gray <stevebg at adelphia.net>
  • Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 07:23:45 -0500 (EST)
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:03:31 +0000 (UTC), timetime at gmail.com (Time E. Time) wrote:

>New features and better algorithms are great, but does anyone know if
>they've fixed any bugs in this release?  Things like
>
>The rotated text bug on Macs where labels on the y-axis of frames are
>garbled.
>
>The instability in large eigenvalue calculations, which sometimes make
>it impossible to interrupt the kernel and other times cause the kernel
>to unexpectedly quit.
>
>The "feature" where Mathematica uses a non-standard character
>encoding, so that text in graphics is garbled when imported into some
>other programs, like Illustrator.
>
>I'm excited about cluster analysis, but I can't bring myself to fork
>over any more money to Stephen Wolfram until simple problems which
>have existed for years are fixed.

Tim is right but he does not mention the many bugs in the interface I've
reported for the last year or two. One simple example is that in-line
comments don't work right. (Could anything in Mathematica be simpler?) Word
wrap is a joke. You can't highlight parts of your code without risking
bizarre bugs.  Things in the code randomly change their alignment so it's
difficult to maintain neat-looking code.  I have many other complaints,
all in the interface or documentation, both of which I regard as mediocre
(but with excellence here and there). The math itself is generally
excellent, but I don't want to fork over any more $ either until all
simple and obvious bugs are fixed.


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