Re: Re: "Do What I Mean" - a suggestion for improving
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg97081] Re: [mg97048] Re: "Do What I Mean" - a suggestion for improving
- From: peter <plindsay.0 at gmail.com>
- Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 04:51:54 -0500 (EST)
- References: <200902281142.GAA16641@smc.vnet.net> <godm42$46k$1@smc.vnet.net>
well, if you make mathematica *too* easy - everyone's going to be using it. Then where will we all be ? Peter 2009/3/4 AES <siegman at stanford.edu> > In article <godm42$46k$1 at smc.vnet.net>, > David Bakin <davidbak at gmail.com> wrote: > > > DrMajorBob, > > > > I think you're missing the point here - and actually, this is exactly the > > point that AES keeps banging on. "It's up to a user to write what he > means" > > is small comfort to a user, especially one new to Mathematica, who > doesn't > > know how to express what he means. > > and can't **easily and quickly** track down that information, in > documentation that's **matched to his or her needs**. > > > > "DWIM" is a tongue-in-cheek name, not to be taken literally. It is just > a > > name for an meta-analysis feature that inspects the user's input and > > proposes similar input forms that may be closer to what the user has in > > mind, based on a database of common errors. > > Right. > > Given the sophistication of everything else that Wolfram does, I assume > that it has always done a massive amount of sophisticated user testing, > in which it presents its (soft)wares to a wide variety of different > kinds of users, and observes and studies what errors they commonly make > -- right? > > (At least it's my understanding that many other companies do this kind > of thing, with whatever kind of wares they vend -- right?) > > So, the above-mentioned "database of common errors" already exists -- > right? > > -- Peter Lindsay