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Re: Usages Messages

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg94863] Re: Usages Messages
  • From: David Bailey <dave at removedbailey.co.uk>
  • Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 06:37:58 -0500 (EST)
  • References: <gj2cat$fsr$1@smc.vnet.net> <gj55k3$c6u$1@smc.vnet.net>

AES wrote:
> In article <gj2cat$fsr$1 at smc.vnet.net>,
>  "David Park" <djmpark at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
>> Usage messages are extremely useful but they have gotten caught up and
>> tangled in the evolution of Mathematica so that in trying to do too much
>> they end up doing too little.
>>
> 
> Hmmm -- David, I think you might be learning!
> 
> Might this thought be broadened to the idea that _Mathematica itself_, 
> having gotten "caught and entangled" in an objective of trying to be 
> able to do, not just "too much", but more or less _everything_ anyone 
> might want to do within a single program, has evolved into a system 
> that, as a result, ends up being hard to use to do almost anything?
> 
> [E.g., syntax and command structure so massive and complex as to be 
> almost unlearnable, unsatisfactory user interface, massive but still 
> mostly unsatisfactory user documentation, innumerable "gotchas" and 
> unexpected interactions between commands, and so on.]
> 
The vast majority of new features are accessed via new command names, so 
unless you use reserved names as your own, you should have very little 
trouble using Mathematica 7 as if it were Mathematica 4.2 - with a few 
obvious differences in the area of graphics.

I don't suppose anyone - even Stephen Wolfram - knows the entire set of 
commands with all their variants - but why would anyone ever need to?

David Bailey
http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk


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