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Re: Work on Basic Mathematica Stephen!

Le 17/05/2013 10:35, Fred Simons a =C3=A9crit :
> Like David Park and Raul Martinez, I am a user of Mathematica since
> version 1. Since I am (was) really very enthousiastic about Mathematica,
> in my courses on Mathematica that I regularly present to professionals
> who are going to use Mathematica or want to deepen their knowledge of
> this package, I had no problem in convincing them how powerfull and
> strong Mathematica is (was).
>
> Now we have Mathematica 9. My feeling about this version becomes more
> and more negative. We have the problem with the sudden change of the
> default style between version 8 and version 9. Going back in version 9
> to the style of Mathematica 8 is not bug free, so I, and the
> participants of my courses, have problems with the course material.
>
> Mathematica 9 is very unstable. For me it is the poorest version that I
> have used since the frontend was added. In many of my notebooks, I
> cannot use simple commands like selecting a name and pressing shift-F1
> for going to the help, or ctrl( for converting a selection to a
> mathematica formula. The result is that I get the message Mathematica 9
> stopped working...
>
> Last Tuesday I gave a course on interactivity in Mathematica.
> Mathematica 9 was running on 7 platforms. On at least 5 of them
> Mathematica had to be restarted during the course because of it started
> showing incorrect output. When things like this happen, I cannot
> recommend Mathematica to a potential new user ....
>
> But what worries me most is my feeling that WRI seems not to be
> interested in producing a stable, reasonable bugfree release.
>
> I read some examples in this thread. My personal example is that there
> is a bug in Mathematica with respect to the MINGW-compiler. That bug
> forces me to keep using Mathematica 8 for my applications that use
> compilation. The bug is found by WRI (good work!) and I was informed
> about it. But the bug is not repaired in the latest releases ...
>
> Like many of you, I hope that WRI will lay their priority on the quality
> of the software, instead of on the number of included functions.
> Personally, I am very happy with the functions available in Mathematica 8.
>
> Fred Simons
> Eindhoven University of Technology
>
> Op 13-5-2013 9:49, R Martinez schreef:
>> All,
>>
>> Count me as one who has been using Mathematica since Version 1, and who uses Mathematica for serious Mathematics and for teaching.  Mathematica enables me to do things expeditiously that would take a tremendous amount of effort to do otherwise.  So I love Mathematica. I wish I'd had it when I was in college.
>>
>> Having said that, I agree with many of David Park's comments, especially about the Front End and stability.  I would like to see Wolfram Research pay attention to David's constructive criticisms.
>>
>> Adding my bit to David's comments about Front End stability, I'm one who complained about the new default notebook style that surfaced in Mathematica 9.  The fonts and text color used in the new default style are ugly.  Moreover, opening an old Mathematica 8 default notebook in Mathematica 9 changed all the fonts and colors to the new undesirable ones.  I complained to Wolfram (apparently I was not alone) and a workaround was found
 by including the Mathematica 8 version notebook as a style that one has to select (as opposed to the default style). So Wolfram was responsive, but the lack of foresight remains: Why not reverse roles and include the new default notebook style as an option and keep the old one as default?  This would address one aspect of stability that David eloquently describes.
>>
>> So yes, Wolfram, please pay attention to Mathematica and the effect changes on users, particularly the stability issue.  Change is good, but it has to be done well.
>>
>> Raul Martinez
>>
>>
>
>
I would agree about the instability of Mathematica 9. I have posted
previously about the program freezing sporadically with subsequent loss
of unsaved work. I was not the only one to have a similar problem and
post it on the discussion group. However there was no response to my
questions. I am currently working on a note book that I have to restart
several times per hour as a result of crashes/freezing. It seems to be
related somewhat to dynamic content, but as I am unable to reliably
reproduce the behaviour I can't post the problem or contact technical
services.

I for one would welcome an update that fixed any instabilities.

On the other hand I am already using functions new to Mathematica 9,
such as ContinuousMarkovProcess, so the addition of new functionality is
also welcome. I have little interest in Mathematica for an I-pad or
telephone, which I regard as largely a gimmick.

LP
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