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Re: Major problem with 6.0.2.1

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg89467] Re: Major problem with 6.0.2.1
  • From: Bill Rowe <readnews at sbcglobal.net>
  • Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:41:41 -0400 (EDT)

On 6/9/08 at 2:29 AM, siegman at stanford.edu (AES) wrote:

>Not all of his complaints, in an obviously heated and angry post,
>may be entirely valid.  But from my recent experiences with
>Mathematica, and from private correspondence I've received from
>another faculty member at another large university in response to my
>own posts here, he, and I, and others who have better things to do
>than post on this group,

That is understandable.

>do resonate with the underlying point, which is that WRI has done a
>_totally_ inadequate job of _user_ documentation,

But this comment is precisely equivalent to comments in the
original post. That is there is nothing specific for anyone at
WRI to address. Without specifics, such comments serve no useful
purpose except possibly making you feel better having made such
a comment.

>information, and assistance in its introduction of
>6.0, and this has greatly damaged Mathematica's perceived standing,
>and possibly its future.

>Doesn't take a lot of responses like this to have an impact.  If WRI
>wishes to keep Mathematica the premier choice for a computational
>and symbolic tool for higher education broadly, it had better repair
>these deficiencies quickly.

How do you expect anyone at WRI to address what you see as
deficiencies when you provide no specifics?

The closest the original post came to providing specifics was:

>> Then came 6.  . . . . Commands that don't work even in the
>> help browser (try TableAlignments in TableForm).  A new help browser in
>> which a search now provides reams of links somewhere in which you might =
find
>> buried the information you want.

But there are no specifics, nothing to indicate what the
original poster meant by not working or what he tried. And when
I look at the help page for TableForm, I do not see any example
of using TableAlignments. So, what does it mean to say "Commands
that don't work even in the help browser (try TableAlginments..."?

The bottom line is if you want something changed you simply have
to provide enough information so someone at WRI can duplicate
your issue and see what is desired. There is essentially no
chance things will be changed in the manner you would like if
you are unwilling or unable to provide that kind of information.


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