Re: Re: A Package Function Tutorial
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg92270] Re: [mg92246] Re: [mg92228] A Package Function Tutorial
- From: "peter lindsay" <pl.0 at me.com>
- Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 05:32:24 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <200809231135.HAA00876@smc.vnet.net>
I've got a lot of sympathy with this comment below; I often think there's a bit of showing-off amongst coders who make code as arcane as possible. Often the hardest, and cleverest, thing to do is to write clear maintainable code ? 2008/9/24 Mauricio Esteban Cuak <cuak2000 at gmail.com> > Just a small comment that probably only adresses beginners like me: > > While a function with all the bells and whistles can have a lot of good > things, I often > spend too much time trying to figure out how a function works when i > download a package. > If it had less of all that nice stuff, I could understand how it works and > avoid feeding it with the wrong input (instead of not understanding it and > having the function tell me that it's a wrong input) > Of course, I am not suggesting people shouldn't write professional looking > functions; I'm only saying that sometimes there's a trade-off, at least for > beginners like me that are trying to understand how the functions work. > > cd > > 2008/9/23 <blackhole at thebushman.net> > > > I have written a brief introduction to writing package functions that > > implement most of the bells and whistles one would associate with a > > professionally written function. Some of the topics covered are > > implementation of Automatic in functions, overloading of built-in > > symbols, and others. > > > > Yes, most of the material can be found scattered in the shipping > > documentation, but my sense is that there is no good place to find > > essentially a checklist of the features a good function should have, > > like argument checking, attributes, syntax coloring, etc. You will > > find that I am no expert, but perhaps someone at Wolfram (or > > elsewhere) will be offended enough to contribute some good > > suggestions. > > > > You can find it at my website, http://www.thebushman.net. > > > > Here you will also find a package I published last month, a NURBS > > package providing a bridge from parametric curves and surfaces to CAD- > > friendly IGES format. > > > > > > >
- References:
- A Package Function Tutorial
- From: blackhole@thebushman.net
- A Package Function Tutorial